In this year’s Technology Outlook Webinar for Wide Format & Signage and Textiles, we touched on some of the initiatives that are in place to ensure better working conditions and fair pay for garment workers, including Fashion Revolution and the Responsible Sourcing Network with its Yarn Ethically & Sustainably Sourced (YESS) pilot project. It’s no secret that garment workers have not been treated equitably in many countries. And there have been a number of tragedies as a result of their treatment. For example, 146 garment workers died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911 because the doors to the stairwells and exits were locked. More recently, a garment factory fire in Bangladesh (2012) resulted in at least 112 deaths, and a Bangladesh garment factory collapse (2013) killed more than 1,100 workers, the clothing industry’s worst ever industrial accident. And many in between.

In the United States, we tend to think “that couldn’t happen here,” and 1911 was a long time ago. But according to Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren, there still are too many instances of garment workers being treated unfairly and put at risk, even in the United States. That’s why they have introduced the Fashioning Accountability and Building Real Institutional Change—a.k.a. FABRIC—Act, a bill that seeks to eradicate the piece-rate system for all garment employees in the United States, introduce new transparency measures, incentivize reshoring and create a domestic garment manufacturing grant program. This follows on the heels of the California Garment Worker Protection Act that strengthens protections for garment workers and sets up an enforcement agency to hold manufacturers accountable, as well as the proposed Fashion Act proposed by a New York coalition aiming to hold major brands accountable for their social and environmental impact.

According to recent industry data supporting passage of the California Act, “Los Angeles has the highest concentration of garment industry workers in the country. Largely located south and east of downtown, some 2,000 manufacturers employ more than 40,000 people—mostly immigrant women—who spend 10 to 12 hours a day cutting, sewing, and dyeing clothing—from designer jeans to ‘fast fashion’ runway knockoffs.” Prior to the Act being passed, most of these workers were paid by the piece and earned as little as “$.03 per assembly operation (ex, setting a seam, trimming a blouse), which is entirely too low to ever enable a worker to earn the minimum wage per hour. What’s worse, workers often report they do not even know what they will earn from hour to hour and week to week, as rates are set and changed by employers, and it is common for employers to reduce already promised piece rates.  Not only does utilizing the piece rate enable—and even justify—sub-minimum wage, but it also creates unsafe working conditions, as garment workers are constantly racing against the clock to complete as many items as possible. The piece rate impedes workers’ ability to take breaks, which would be unpaid under this system, to sanitize workstations or wash their hands, critical hygiene needed to stem the spread of COVID-19,” according to GarmentWorkersAct.org.