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Just seven months after California’s historic SB62 garment worker protection bill passed and only four since New York State’s proposed Fashion Act was announced, another piece of legislation impacting the fashion industry is coming — and for the first time, it’s happening on a federal level.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (NY-D) exclusively tells Vogue that she will introduce the Fashioning Accountability and Building Real Institutional Change (FABRIC) Act in the Senate on 12 May, with dozens of endorsements from activists, manufacturers and brands throughout the industry already behind it. If written into law, the bill will extend the anti-wage theft principles of SB62 nationwide and offer incentives like tax exemptions and grant programmes for brands looking to manufacture in the US.
While almost every consumer product industry in the US has enforced regulation to some degree, fashion has long been the exception, and it’s been the workers who have paid the price. Even within the country, the supply chain is complex, and suppliers often use layers of subcontracted work to skirt labour laws.
For decades, brands have contracted work out to manufacturers using a piece-rate payment system where employees are paid per item they make, resulting in as little as $2 per hour for full-time work. The FABRIC Act would extend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, placing liability requirements on those brands that work with...
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