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My friend Jenny's mom works at a sewing factory in the Mission district of San Francisco. Every day, she and a dozen or so Chinese ladies make stacks of dresses for Macy's that sell for hundreds of dollars each, on the second floor of a building right across from hipster bars and nightclubs. Their revenue: $2-3 per dress.
But this month, after nearly 30 years in operation, one of the businesses in her building is shutting down due to declining revenues. Most of the women who work there will be filing for unemployment soon--they don't speak any English, are uneducated, and only know how to sew.
Several hours after they vacated the factory a week ago today, I dropped by the building to take these photos with Jenny, who told me stories of a childhood filled with pretend train rides in giant clothing hampers and the time her mom sewed her some emergency clothes after she peed in her pants because she was scared of the dirty toilet.
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I can't remember a time when there weren't sweat shops. There was some hope a few years ago that U.S. makers of clothes might have an advantage. The problem with making them overseas was that by the time they arrived here the trend could be over. Now even the sweat shops in China are closing.
In business school I learned about the marginal theory of pricing in which volume and profit were optimized. In the clothing game the prices are set so high there are few sales, then they are remaindered at break-even or a loss. In the end they are rags in a barrel.
This is why stores are doomed. On the internet you can find the price and the quality you want.
wow - this is truly a sad story - not necessarily for Macy's for the story you tell of your mom, the abandoned sewing factory and the fact their revenue would be so little for something that would end up being sold for many more dollars...to think of the delivery people who deliver the good getting more dollars than those who actually make the said goods is rather sad. thank you for sharing your story... you should let others know more about this... they would be as shocked as I was....it makes me really think twice about buying clothes.
Roy, what makes you assume it was a sweat shop? San Francisco has very strong labor laws, and it doesn't sound like the place was operating under the radar by any means. It sounds like what happened is that many people just lost their jobs and are going to have a hard time finding something else.
It's just like in "Real Women Have Curves," only with Asian-Americans in SF and not Mexican-Americans in LA.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0296166/
The person questioning whether or not this was a sweat shop apparently never been into an industrial building down on Third Street or half the buildings on alleys South of Market. San Francisco is crawling with sweatshops.
At least they're getting severance and unemployment payments. I guess that means the other textile/sewing factory off Potrero Ave is still in business?
disclaimer: I work in the garment industry for a N. American company that specializes in headwear and knit goods for other, larger companies, much of which is contracted out to overseas manufacturers.
You think that's a sweatshop? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say none of you have seen a Chinese sewing factory, even a socially compliant one, let alone Vietnam's. Anyone in the garment industry that's done the Asian factory tour knows what I'm talking about.
around 2001 i lived in a huge 125 year old building in brooklyn. it looked like this space, minus the linoleum. it had all been sweatshops for ages. there were what we were told were pin burns in the hardwood floor that we visible after we stripped off the paint. if i opened the back window it looked across a "courtyard" [more like junk dump] to another equally sized space but it was crammed with sewing machines and spanish speaking women. my loft was illegal. so i'm guessing theirs was too. it was a disturbing site. i guess mainly the difference in my lifestyle and theirs. or their space usage vs mine. beats me. although i was working illegally at the time [too?].
Shame to see all that talent go to waste.
I'd guess folks smarter than I have tried to think of a business model..maybe something with the small run, indie, designers? Hard to do something different than what can be done over the Internet to a cheaper place. Maybe more hands on with the designers.
Invite those newly-unemployed ladies to the next Maker Faire. They may "only know how to sew" but, well, i can't. Aside from connecting them with opportunities to make a little scratch, it might also might also expand some hitherto subdued creative impulses. Lemonade from lemons, as they say.
Not that there's anything wrong with lemons.
Until sometime in the '90s there was an undergarment factory in Richland Center, Wisconsin. Employees were always paid per piece, so speed (while maintaining quality standards) was essential to making a decent wage. I think there's a fine line between a piece-shop environment and a sweat shop. In the US, a shop operated as a sweatshop is clearly operating outside of the law and there is the potential for legal recourse. I do understand that those most likely to be involved in that illegal industry would face many barriers to pursuing such legal recourse, however.
There are several seamstresses operating on ebay who will make you a garment, tailored to measurements you send. If these women were willing to do their jobs for so little in sweatshops, they might be interested in doing the same thing over the internet, and getting to keep more of the profits for themselves.
Just a thought.
nice
To the commentator that says sweatshops don't exist in North America because they are sooo bad in China and Vietnam;
I know what you are getting at. The Chinese have a new word in their dictionary meaning 'death by work' coined specifically from the garment industry where workers literally fall off their stools and bleed from their nose, mouth, ears and anus.
However, to say that that is the worst so everything else is okay, is wrong. A sweatshop is a sweatshop; there are just varying degrees.