Companies Operating Sweatshops

Which companies are operating sweatshops? Many of the companies directly running sweatshops are small and don't have much name recognition. However, virtually every retailer in the U.S. has ties to sweatshops. The U.S. is the biggest market for the garment industry and almost all the garment sales in this country are controlled by 5 corporations: Wal-Mart, JC Penney, Sears, The May Company (owns and operates Lord & Taylor, Hecht1s, Filene1s and others) and Federated Department Stores (owns and operates Bloomingdale1s, Macy1s, Burdine1s, Stern1s and others). Several industry leaders have been cited for labor abuses by the Department of Labor. Of these Guess? Clothing Co. is one of the worst offenders - Guess? was suspended indefinitely from the Department of Labor's list of "good guys" because their contractors were cited for so many sweatshop violations. Other companies contract out their production to overseas manufacturers whose labor rights violations have been exposed by U.S. and international human rights groups. These include Nike, Disney, Wal-Mart, Reebok, Phillips- Van Heusen, the Gap, Liz Claiborne and Ralph Lauren. Somewhere in the world there are 850 pairs of Guess jeans that were sewn in Los Angeles by Maria Eugenia Cruz – a Mexican immigrant and single mother of three – on the day after she had minor surgery to remove a growth on her head. With a bandage and a headache, she was ordered to show up for work at the usual hour of 7.15 in the morning, or risk losing her job. Cruz worked for Jeans Plus, one of the largest of an estimated 80 contract-sewing shops that made Guess garments in LA. On a good day, fingers flying, she earned an average of $4.68 an hour – seven cents less than California’s minimum wage at the time and $1.07 less than today’s minimum. Steve Nutter, western states director for the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE), says it costs Guess less than $5 in wages to make a pair of jeans that sells for $50