Primarily based on details from a lot more than 50 contractors and makers, the 2022 Southern California Garment Survey released lately by the Department’s Wage and Hour Division, located violations of the Truthful Labor Benchmarks Act in 80{1668a97e7bfe6d80c144078b89af180f360665b4ea188e6054b2f93f7302966b} of its investigations.
The findings state that much more than 50{1668a97e7bfe6d80c144078b89af180f360665b4ea188e6054b2f93f7302966b} of the time, companies illegally payed staff possibly section or all their wages off the books, with payroll documents possibly intentionally cast or not offered.
The survey also identified 32{1668a97e7bfe6d80c144078b89af180f360665b4ea188e6054b2f93f7302966b} of contractors having to pay garment employees piece-price wages – a practice prohibited by the State of California on 1 January 2022.
In a particularly egregious circumstance, the investigation discovered “a contractor paid out garment workers as minimal as $1.58 per hour.”
Ruben Rosalez, regional wage and hour administrator in San Francisco, defined: “Despite our attempts to keep Southern California’s garment marketplace companies accountable, we continue on to see men and women who make clothing offered by some of the nation’s foremost shops operating in sweatshops. A lot of persons purchasing for garments in stores and on the internet are most likely unaware that the ‘Made in the USA’ goods they are buying was, in actuality, created by persons earning much significantly less than the US regulation requires.”
As section of the survey, the division executed time and pricing research and discovered that stitching expenses compensated by suppliers to contractors were being – on regular – not plenty of for the contractors to appropriately pay out their workers’ needed minimal wages.
Precisely, the experiments determined the average stitching payment was $2.75 underneath the sum needed per garment for stitching contractors to comply with federal wage benchmarks. Contractors who compensated workforce in compliance with the law acquired a better sewing price, ranging from $17.50 to $35 per garment.
In conjunction with the launch of the results for the Southern California Garment Study, the section hosted a listening session in Los Angeles with garment workers and stakeholders, reps from condition and nearby lawyers standard, and the non-revenue Garment Employee Heart and Wager Tzedek Authorized Clinic.
In 2022, investigations by the division’s Southern California district places of work in Los Angeles, San Diego and West Covina, led to the restoration of extra than $892,000 in back wages and liquidated damages for 296 employees.
The division also secured agreements with companies to check contractors to make sure FLSA compliance.
