The devil comes in different forms

Tougher laws and better enforcement…are needed to reduce sweatshop labor in Southern California garment industry,” a major Jewish group says in an article written by LA Times Staff Writer Patrick J. McDonnell last Feb. 1.

“Under the current system of apparel production, it is virtually impossible for a manufacturer to avoid using sweatshops at some time”, the group says. “Southern California is the nation’s leading apparel manufacturing center employing 160,000 workers, most of them immigrants from Mexico and Central America. But the proliferation of sweatshops has marred the industry’s reputation. A US Department of Labor survey of Southern California sewing shops last year found that fewer than 10 firms comply with minimum-wage and overtime laws”.

“Former Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed a law that would have increased the legal exposure of garment manufacturers that use sweatshop labor. The garment industry also opposes the idea, contending that it will drive work overseas”.

“It would cost the jobs of thousands of American workers”, said Stan Levy, a lawyer and rabbi who heads the Labor and Public Affairs Committee for California Fashion Assn., the leading industry trade group in Southern California. ‘For 100 years, the garment industry has been a ladder in the United States for waves of immigrants.
To remove the ladder now would be tragic’.”

This news report is a tale that California Congressman George Miller has been waving a paper tiger against the NMI since the first oversight hearing in 1993. That our modern garment industry is the safest in the world that has turned into a $1.2 billion sector has become a serious threat to thousands of American jobs in California where Miller comes from. It is apparent that any serious effort to impose the same Code of Conduct we’ve implemented here would force California’s garment industry to head down to Mexico and other Latin American countries.

Congressman Miller hails from a state where, according to a US Department of Labor survey of last year, found that “fewer than 10 firms comply with minimum-wage and overtime laws”. And Miller has the audacity to hurl rocks against our glass houses when in fact he lives in one? Perhaps it is difficult not doing the rain dance when one’s political career has been and still is being bankrolled by the labor unions who also have looked the other way on sweatshop conditions in California’s garment industry.

Now, according to studies by the Center for Responsive Politics, David Bonior received the following in labor PAC money: 1994, $297,065; 1996, $413,730; and 1998, $449,717. George Miller: 1994, $90,300; 1996, $85,950; and 1998, $68,300. No wonder the two culprits have donned blinds on their faces to protect labor unions’ interest over the livelihood of this group of US Citizens who aren’t beneficiaries of “equal representation” in the US Congress.

At least, Congressmen Miller and Bonior have confirmed my suspicion that they’ve employed the shield of human rights issues, in concert with the US Dept. of Interior, to ease the discomfort of stiff competition from Little David in the Pacific. Must the NMI now pay the price of forced closure of its thriving apparel industry because California garment manufacturers have rested on their laurels and can’t meet new paradigms in global competition? For once in your life, Congressman Miller and Bonior, tell “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” so we can help save you from yourselves.

Your adolescent behavior further confirms that the principles of freedom and justice are only good for as long as special interests ensure that they place their own slaves in the halls of the US Congress. Learn to “tell it like it is” gentlemen because it is high time that you cease and desist from fronting human rights issues as your magical shield to protect donors whose contributions have turned your conscience on justice against yourselves. Si Yuus Maase`!