The Student Activist Project traveled to the Garment District in downtown Los Angeles Saturday morning to tour the Garment Worker Center and gain new insight into the lives of those laborers.
Students also explored the Fashion District on foot, searching high-rise buildings for hidden sweatshops. Some students didn’t make it past locked doors, and others glimpsed through wire doors into cramped and dirty sewing rooms.
The students’ morning began at the Garment Worker Center, which was opened in 2001 as a resource for exploited garment workers, to empower them to facilitate change. The center aims to impact the daily life of those workers by offering services such as childcare, workshops on health and safety, and a counselor who offers mental health support. The center also helps workers obtain wages owed to them.
Tina Reggio, a facilitator of the student-led group, said she hoped to enlighten the students that joined her on the field trip.
“It’s really eye-opening to see it before your own eyes,” said Reggio, a second-year international developmental studies student. “Once you see it, you can’t ignore it.”
Students were also given maps and encouraged by Kimi Lee, the director of the Garment Worker Center, to explore the Fashion District.
Some students saw small workshops or factories firsthand, but most of the students simply saw empty rooms where workers may work during weekdays. Many of the buildings where workrooms were found had dark, narrow stairways, dirty floors and poor lighting. Workrooms were generally on the uppermost floors of buildings, far from the public eye.
“I had a very eye-opening experience because we got to see behind locked doors and the working conditions,” said Trissa Melendrez, a first-year undeclared life sciences student. “It affects you to see it firsthand, and it’s inspiring to help them receive the social justice they deserve.”
Lee gave a presentation to the students to educate them on factories with poor working conditions and the lives of garment workers.
Lee opened her presentation by asking students to check the labels on their clothes to find out the wide variety of countries from which their clothing came. In response, Students shouted out countries including China, El Salvador, Haiti, India and Mexico.
But Lee was quick to point out that sweatshops are not just in other countries ““ they still exist in the United States, and Los Angeles is the U.S. capital of factories with sweatshop-like conditions.
Lee explained what she called the limitations of the Department of Labor, which is responsible for enforcing labor laws.
“They do not have the same power as the police,” she said. “Police can enforce serious consequences, but the penalties are more lax for labor laws.”
Lee said she believes this because of budget cuts in the Department of Labor, though this year the department’s budget increased $2.8 billion, according to its Web site.
There are an estimated 90,000 garment workers in Los Angeles. Many workers that Lee has helped at the center earn $3 to $4 per hour, much less than California’s minimum wage of $8. Some garment workers Lee has talked to received “˜IOU’ slips or are paid strictly in cash.
Garment workers often have a hard time changing unsafe working conditions or getting their wages increased because of the intricately layered systems that companies have created, Lee said. She said that large corporations will outsource work to manufacturers, who then outsource work to individual contractors.
“Contractors often shut down, and one year is the average lifespan for a factory,” Lee said. “We’re trying to fix this. Companies aren’t held accountable.”
When students asked what they could do to change and help the life of a garment worker, Lee encouraged them to vocalize their opinions to the companies.
“Companies will listen to consumers. Consumers need to care where clothes are made and how workers are treated,” she said.
Stephanie Castro, another facilitator for the Student Activist Group, said the group intended to bring what they learned on their field trip back to UCLA. She said she wants to educate more students on sweatshop labor and encourages students to support striking workers.
“I think it really opened my eyes about stuff outside of UCLA,” Castro said. “You don’t really think about the people that slave away.”