Yeah, right! - China blamed for all US textile industry's woes
By Betty Liu in Atlanta
Published: December 5 2003 20:27 | Last Updated: December 5 2003 20:27
news.ft.com
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Talk about slave labors in textile factories in the US and Canada. I now personally know two persons (one is in the US, and the other is in Canada), who had worked for 29 days, 14 hour/day in clothing factories, but ended up paid for nothing.
The practice is usually like this: owners set up a shop in a big warehouse in big cities, such as NYC, LA, or Toronto, and recruit a bunch of workers to make cloths, promised the workers to pay them at the end of the month. But the last day of the month, when the workers come to the warehouse, only to see a big empty room, and all the sewing machines and clothing have disappeared. And thus, they worked for almost a month, without weenends, and got paid nothing. And when they go to the state Labor Dept. complaining, the only thing the state can do is to ask them filling in a form, and that is it. Each single year, in NYC and LA, there are >20,000 this type of cases, and the state gov. can do nothing at all.
Comparing with these poor workers, the workers in China at least get paid, even if not much. |
