45,000 Garment Workers: The Industry Is Here

Interview by Kimberly Espinosa

Can you please state your name, hometown, and occupation?
I am Lizbet. I live in the Pico-Union, Los Angeles area, also known as Tongva land. I am a case manager with the Garment Worker Center.

Can you describe more of your role at the Garment Worker Center?
I am a case manager. I run our wage clinic. The wage clinic is basically a space where workers can come in and talk to me about the workplace issues that they’re facing in their factories.

I support workers in getting to know more about their rights. I support them in filing a wage claim at the Labor Commissioner’s office. I represent the workers when they file a wage claim. That means that I am supporting the workers in their fight to win the wages that are owed to them, something known as “wage theft,” which we see a lot. I also support our organizing efforts by supporting and helping to develop our leadership team.

Do you have a legal background? How did you reach this position within the Garment Worker Center?
I don’t have a legal background. I started working at the Garment Worker Center three years ago, and I actually started off being in the office as an administrative assistant. I had interned with the Garment Worker Center when I was a college student, and through that, I got to know the organizers.

Our organizer, who did the wage claims and ran the wage clinic, eventually transitioned out about two years ago, so they trained me to do this work. I was shadowing them. I was following them around and trying to learn as much as I could until eventually they passed the baton onto me. I am now running the wage clinic.

What is a typical day of work for you?
Every day is different, because we’re a very small organization with few staff. We’re all kind of doing a little bit of everything. My day typically consists of meeting with my team, going over plans we have, seeing if there are any media inquiries, and deciding who’s going to do what. A lot of my work is just calling and following up with our workers on their cases and also seeing how they are plugging into our campaign. A lot of my work is meetings, data entry, calls, and also prepping for our general membership meetings.

Can you talk more about the campaigns that you’ve worked on in the past or are currently working on?
When I started working here in 2018 or 2019, we were working on brand campaigns. We had a campaign against Ross because we found out in 2016 through a report of the Department of Labor that they were one of the brands found in a lot of factories. How I would explain it is that they were found not to be paying enough so that workers can get paid a minimum wage. We also saw that a lot of workers were producing labels that were sold at Ross, so we decided to open a campaign. Right now, we have a policy campaign. It used to be called S.B. 299, but we didn’t get it ratified, and now it’s S.B. 62. It’s a law that would eliminate the piece-rate pay for workers.

What challenges have you faced while working on these campaigns, or what have you learned throughout these experiences?
First of all, we didn’t expect to be hit by a pandemic. So it’s been really hard to plug in our workers because a lot of them have a difficult time using Zoom. We had to figure out a way to shift our organizing to be virtual while also having a policy campaign. I think [technology barriers] have been a very big challenge. How do we plug our workers into these campaigns that can be inaccessible?

When the pandemic started, what were some other challenges personally and as part of the Garment Worker Center? How are you overcoming these challenges?
For me and my personal work, it became very difficult because a lot of my work before the pandemic hit was meeting workers at the office and running through the process of what it means to file a claim by talking to them in person. Not having that anymore and not being able to do that became a big obstacle. It’s really hard to explain these processes of filing [a claim] to a worker on the phone because it’s so complicated, and I think that has been a big challenge even to this day. When we have a cita (an appointment), I have to call the worker more than once to make sure that they’re comfortable, and that has been a challenge for me.

In general, it’s hard to pull workers to come to a meeting when you know that they’re just trying to survive, right? They aren’t given any money from the government. A lot of workers — government workers — don’t qualify for unemployment. It’s tough to organize when workers don’t have money for rent or food, or they have a job. So that was a big obstacle — trying to figure out how to support our workers during these times while also finding a way to continue with our campaigns. It’s difficult to ask workers to join a meeting when you know they’re starving or worried about where their next meal is coming from or how they’re going to pay for rent.

Could you describe more of the communities involved in the Garment Worker Center and your relationship with them?
In terms of communities, I’m guessing you’re asking maybe about the demographics? A lot of the garment workers that we’re seeing today are Indigenous people of predominantly Mayan descent. I know that there’s also a decent number of people in our base who are also Zapotecos. There are a couple of people from Costa Rica, but mostly they come from Guatemala and Mexico. Those seem to be the big three groups that we see. I have a couple of relatives who are also [clients] of the Garment Worker Center. Again, my parents are garment workers and have friends working in the industry for 30 years, so I have that personal connection with the industry.

What has outreach been like? How do you get people to learn about the organization?
Fortunately, we have amazing leaders, so a lot of workers usually come in through word-of-mouth. A lot of our leaders talk to their co-workers about us and eventually keep talking about us until the worker is interested, and then they reach out to us or we reach out to them. A lot of our outreach comes from our leaders themselves. They’re the ones who talk to their [fellow workers].

Every now and then, we also try to do things like mobile [COVID-19] testing clinics or vaccine clinics. Clinics are something we’re exploring now to get more presence and visibility in the community, not only through word of mouth. We want to make sure that the community sees and knows that we’re here and trying to make a lot of changes in the industry. 

What is the most important skill that you have or think is important to have while working in the garment industry?
I don’t know if it’s a skill, but I think it’s my personal connection and ties to the industry. There’s just something that connects me to organizing. Whenever I’m having one-on-ones, which is when you basically have a one-on-one conversation with the worker, it really helps to build relationships and help me to get to know them in that moment. I let them know that my parents are garment workers and have been for more than 30 years. And they usually respond, ‘So you get it. You’ve seen it.’ I think my personal tie to the industry is very critical for building relationships with workers and in my [organizing efforts].

I totally relate to that. While growing up, you experienced some of these challenges along with your parents. How were you an advocate before working at the Garment Worker Center?
I actually didn’t know for a long time that there was a word for my parents’ profession. I just knew they worked in factories. I didn’t know they were called “garment workers” until I was in college. There were a lot of challenges, for example, daycare. My parents had to leave us alone in the house when we were little because they couldn’t afford daycare. If they didn’t want to [leave us alone in the house], we had to go into the factories with them. I was able to see their working conditions, like how cramped the factories were, how hot it was, how dirty it was, and how much they had to work to earn so little.

I remember when we would go out to eat at McDonald’s and they wouldn’t eat. They would just drink coffee so that they could buy my two sisters and me a Happy Meal. I have those vivid memories, and I know that it was definitely a challenge. They’re always talking about how when we were babies, they couldn’t even afford to keep the electricity on. They had to borrow a light from the next-door neighbor just so that they could have electricity in the fridge to give us milk. I was always aware that we were poor, but I didn’t realize until now, looking back, that my parents were really struggling financially to keep us afloat.

Thank you for sharing that. What do you think is probably your least favorite part of the industry?
For me, it’s seeing how the conditions haven’t changed. My least favorite part is hearing some workers sound defeated. Many workers are pessimistic a lot of the time, with reason, and that’s always hard to hear because I grew up hearing stories of my parents and how horrible things were. Whenever my parents told me that, it was so hard. Thinking about how, with reason, workers think like that, it is difficult.

Again, as organizers, we always try to figure out how we can move those workers into using their lived experiences to change the industry and get them to move other coworkers. It’s been a forgotten industry, so we’re trying to figure out how we can get workers to realize that they do have power, they can change things, and that it’s not the first time that garment workers are in this country.

Do you have a favorite part about working in the industry? Where do you think the industry is heading?
As much as you hear the sad stories, you hear of a lot of resilience and strength. My favorite part of my work is talking to the workers. I’m super grateful that it’s my job to talk to them, check in, see how they’re doing, and see how we can support each other in terms of where the industry is going.

That’s a tough question because of the pandemic, but I hope that the industry will continue to be here and that a year from now, we will have passed our bill (S.B. 62) and have workers who are empowered to talk to their co-workers to [help them understand] their rights. I hope to see a big chain continuing to empower workers. My hope is that years from now, the industry is still here, but with working conditions that are more sustainable and with workers getting paid a fair wage.

In what ways do you think the Garment District in Los Angeles is similar to or different from other garment districts in the world?
Compared to other countries, the garment shops that operate here are definitely smaller [in scale], and you have more workers who are coming from different places. You don’t have just Mexican garment workers, but you have so much diversity; many Indigenous workers don’t speak Spanish or speak more than one language. We’ve also had Indonesian workers. I feel like that’s a big thing — we have workers coming in from different parts of the world.

Another difference is that garment shops here are not unionized, and surprisingly, a lot of big factories in other places in Bangladesh, China, and other parts of Asia are unionized. That’s something that is not seen here because the industry has dwindled and gotten so much smaller.

What do you wish other people knew about the work you do in the Garment District or about the garment industry?
The industry is here. Workers here in L.A., in particular, are making your clothing if you buy stuff that says “Made in the U.S.,” and I think that’s a big thing. I just want my peers — young people who might be 13 to 25 years old and do a lot of shopping — to know that the sweatshops are here. Even though people know that sweatshops exist, it’s always like, over there. It’s abroad. It’s not here.

I feel like [that lack of awareness] is very hard — especially for our leaders and workers — because the industry is so forgotten that it definitely impacts our messaging. A lot of people don’t want to believe that sweatshops are here. I want people to know that such jobs exist and that they’re here. There are workers who are making your clothing for $5 an hour, and they deserve a living wage and respect for the work that they do.

Do you have anything else to share about the garment industry or your work? This is a space for you to share.
More than anything, I’m super grateful for this project. I’m hoping that a lot of people will be able to understand and see more of the workers. Even though there are 45,000 garment workers [in Los Angeles alone], each of their stories is different and fascinating. Many workers are very experienced in what they do. Some have taken classes. I hope people know that this industry is here and that we’re fighting to change it.

For [young people living in Los Angeles], talk to your parents. You never know if they were garment workers when they first came to the U.S. I know that [working with] garments is usually one of the first jobs that a lot of people get when they come to the U.S., especially if they’re coming from Latin America or Central America.

I agree that it’s very important to share. I’m learning a little bit about my mom’s history and her work [in the garment industry] through daily conversations. Thank you so much for your time and for doing this interview.