They were the kind of employers who didn't recognize anyone working for them as a human being. You were not allowed to sing. Operators would like to have sung, because they, too, had the same thing to do, and weren't allowed to sing. You were not allowed to talk to each other. Oh, no! They would sneak up behind you, and if you were found talking to your next colleague you were admonished. If you'd keep on, you'd be fired. If you went to the toilet, and you were there more than the forelady or foreman thought you should be, you were threatened to be laid off for a half a day, and sent home, and that meant, of course, no pay, you know?
Unfortunately, as most New Yorkers with a smattering of history know, the worst was yet to come. [6]
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in New York City on March 25, 1911, was one of the largest industrial disasters in the history of the city of New York, causing the death of 146 garment workers, almost all of them women, who either died from the fire or jumped from the fatal height. It was the worst workplace disaster in New York City until September 11, 2001. Most women could not escape the burning building because the managers would lock the doors to the stairwells and exits to keep the workers from taking cigarette breaks outdoors during their shifts. Women jumped from the ninth and tenth stories as the ladders on the fire trucks could not reach these. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, which fought for better and safer working conditions for sweatshop workers in that industry.
So, this tragedy national in significance led to improved worker conditions and unions to ensure workers' rights. If that was the end of the story of where clothing comes from, and if it was merely a dramatic example of a general trend towards better labor conditions overall in all industries over time, than the "iron law of wages"which determines wages to the minimum on which laborers will consent to live and reproduce"[7] would seem to be wrong. But, of course, as George points out, the true cause of the global minimum wage is "an inevitable result of making the land from which all must live the exclusive property of some."[8] Since this arrangement has not changed since George's time, neither has the result. Here is how things work in today's globalized market:
In a recent examination of "Patriotic clothing," WCCO-TV went to Minnesota's Mall of America (and found) every item with an American flag on it was made in China. At other stores with patriotic apparel, labels read made in China, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Russia.
At Target, WCCO-TV found more than 80 pieces of patriotic clothing. Of all the items, only one T-shirt was made in the United States. At Old Navy, WCCO-TV could not find any American-made patriotic apparel. At Wal-Mart, more than 40 patriotic items were checked. Most were made in America, which is no accident. Wal-Mart has a policy where any item with an American flag on it must be made in the USA.
Ninety-seven percent of all clothing sold in the United States is no longer made in the U.S. Yet, Minnesota is home to two long-standing textile manufacturers. [9]
We'll look to the direct source of that claim that 97% of clothing no longer made in the United States in a moment, but first let's look at a modern-day shirt factory right here in Manhattan. In the year 2000, reporter Henry Blodget found:
behind grimy windows, Chinese women slaved for 11 hours a day, stitching garments for a subcontractor hired by Donna Karan International. The women received no bathroom breaks, no overtime pay, no sick days, no paid vacation, and no maternity leave. They were screamed at to "work faster" and paid "per piece"--earning wages that could only be called "living" if "living" means boiled water and rice" the miserable workers weren't migrant Chinese peasants but immigrant Chinese and Latina women. [10]
Blodget tells us that this factory, so reminiscent of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory a hundred years before it, has now been supplanted by travel bureaus and financial companies, but surely this cannot be the last one, either in New York City, or in the more invisible nether regions of America.
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