We’re all familiar with the concept of sweatshops oppressing workers in far off countries, but last Thursday, Marissa Nuncio of Sweatshop Watch brought the concept home.

Approximately 90 students crowded into room SS 306 last Thursday, and most were surprised to learn that sweatshops exist not just in lesser developed nations without adequate labor laws, they are right here in our own back yard.

Sweatshop Watch is an organization to protect garment workers’ rights, formed seven years ago after the Thai-El Monte Slave Case, in which 70 Thai workers were enslaved in a factory until a woman escaped and told authorities.

There are currently 125,000 sweatshop workers in the State of California, 90,000 of them right here in the Los Angeles area, according to sweatshop watch, making LA the sweatshop capitol of the US.

With our stringent labor regulations, many Americans don’t realize that sweatshop conditions exist in this country, largely exploiting illegal immigrants who will not go to the authorities for fear of being deported.

As a matter of fact, sweatshops take advantage of that very fear to keep their workers from seeking justice, according to Nuncio, through “fear and intimidation.”

Locally, numerous major label manufacturers are being accused of maintaining sweatshops, but they are hard to hold accountable because they delegate orders through a complex chain of command to private “contractors”, and as manufacturer/accused Forever 21 maintains, they are “Not responsible for the actions of contractors.”

“When factories come under fire, they pick up and leave,” said Nuncio. She added that when The Gap came under suspicion of sweatshop conditions, it simply deported 60 percent of its jobs out of the country.

She further explained that over the decades, the garment industry has hopped around the globe in a “race to the bottom for wages.” Low cost labor has led the industry through the US, China, Hong Kong, and Singapore, to name a few, but the increasing trend of illegal immigrants in the US has led them back here to seek workers to exploit.

Sweatshop Watch’s major campaign is against local manufacturer “Forever 21”, which maintains sweatshops right here in the LA area. They are accused of maintaining hazardous conditions without paying minimum wage or overtime.

Frustrated by slow legal progress, as Forever 21 hired six corporate lawyers to fight lawsuits filed by workers, and even counter sued workers for defamation, the garment workers took matters into their own hands, erecting a giant billboard with the message, “Forever 21, sweatshop made” right next to the factory.

“The main reason sweatshops exist,” said Nuncio, “…is poor enforcement of the law.” She pointed out that there is a statute of limitations on any of these cases filed against the garment industry of three years, meaning that if those corporate lawyers can stall the process for that long, the case is dismissed. Furthermore, there are only eight to twelve inspectors at any time inspecting garment makers, so progress is slow at best.

Some corporation have adopted “codes of conduct”, in which they promise not to use sweatshops anymore, but these are less enforceable than the law.

The real answer, according to Nuncio, is education and awareness of the fact that, “It happens right here.” For more information, visit www.sweatshopwatch.org