Posted on 01/03/2017 8:27:44 AM PST by SeekAndFind
LOS ANGELES -- He had spent his latest 45-hour workweek hunched over a sewing machine, attaching labels and stitching collars and tightening black and gold blouses that would soon sell at bargain prices at a popular retailer. But now it was Saturday afternoon, paycheck time, when Pedro felt the full sting of that bargain: It was his own salary that helped keep the prices down for consumers.
His manager gathered the 30-some workers from their stations in the unmarked brick building and passed out payslips.
For the week, he said, he’d been paid $225. Or $5 per hour.
“There’s nothing to do but take it,” Pedro said in an interview earlier this month, recalling his workweek.
While immigrants often face criticism for stealing jobs, they are the ones being increasingly undercut in America’s clothing industry, forced to accept wages below the legal minimum as retailers fight to pass on bargain prices to consumers.
Federal regulators have uncovered a widespread practice of garment workers, most of them undocumented, being paid below the legal minimum wage, according to a recent Department of Labor report. Those findings were echoed in interviews with workers and workers activists here.
“It’s almost been a perfect storm for the garment industry,” said Ruben Rosalez, a regional administrator at the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour division, based in San Francisco. “Not only do [the employers] have the pricing pressure, but they have a labor force that’s prone to being exploited. They’re using that, taking advantage of these workers.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Sympathy meter pegged out some time ago.
Garment workers have had it tough since before the flood.
This is just The Post taking a cheap shot at Trump’s insistence on ‘Made in America.’
““There’s nothing to do but take it,” Pedro said in an interview earlier this month, recalling his workweek. “”
It’s like that for everybody. Why is this guy, “Pedro”, whining, specifically?
I wonder what the nationalities are of the owners. Most likely immigrants themselves taking advantage of less fortunate immigrants.
Replace Pedro with a robot and then send Pedro back to where he came from.
Alternative is find a higher salary (”a thing is worth what another will pay for it”), or no salary at all.
Pedro could stop staying here illegally, and go home.
Federal regulators have uncovered a widespread practice of garment workers, most of them undocumented,
Federal regulators have uncovered a widespread practice of garment workers, most of them undocumented,
Build the Wall and secure the border with lots of Border Guard or US Troops and start deporting Pedro and his friends and then Evil American Capitalists® will not be able to exploit underprivileged illegal aliens.
Federal regulators have uncovered a widespread practice of garment workers, most of them undocumented,
I used to be the CPA for several large garment manufacturers in the USA. It absolutely amazed me to walk through a facility with 400+ garment workers all working piece rate.
I never saw such efficiency in human motion. It was beautiful.
We had a major problem in that the workers in the southern manufacturing plants with the same garment and the same equipment, could not make minimum wage while the northern plants were making double minimum wage or more. There was a huge differential in work ethic between the north and the south.
Copied from some Freeper years ago....(don’t remember who)
Formulaic leftist diatribe.
Let me just save these “journalists some time. Next occasion you have for writing one of these hand-wringing boo-hoo stories about deportations, just use the following template:
Poor
A) Pedro
B) Maria
C) Jose
D) Jesus Christo
is
A) working
B) babysitting her dozen helpless children
C) discovering a cure for cancer
when
A) thugs
B) goons
C)gestapo
D) roving hordes
from
A) the INS
B) government hit squads
show up at the
A) tiny but impeccable bungalow
B) business gates
C) lettuce patch
and haul away the terrified
A) mother of nine
B) hardworking man who was merely searching for a better life
amid
A) gasps of horror
B) howls of outrage
C) beatific calls for forgiveness for “they know not what they do”.
No undocumented worker within the US could ever be exploited by a US company if they left the country.
Also if he cleared 225.00 dollars then the pay is not $5.o0 an hour, as there are taxes, medicare, and social security withheld. That is assuming that he is not being paid under the table because he is an illegal alien, and the owner is operating an illegal sweat factory. In the process that owner is also screwing the citizenry in that area.
The problem is that most garment manufacturers use sub contractors. There is a huge difference in pay, benefits and quality of work environment between independent contractors.
How many MILLIONS of us out here that would LOVE to have a job to supplement SS but our health and physical state prevents, oft-times, being even a greeter at WalMart ?
Had I read the entire article I would have seen that, but I assumed that was likely the case. However, I had seen enough to become disengaged with the direction I knew the article was heading in. Like someone else posted, the sympathy meter has pegged out a long time ago for me as well.
I see LA has a $10 minimum wage.
Is that $5 his net pay? What are his deductions? Any child support?
More fake news by the compost.
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