This edition of "Better Beauty" explores the fashion industry's history of labor abuses. A new law could shift the U.S. into resolution.
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It's not exactly a secret the fashion industry as a whole has a long history of labor abuses and poor working conditions when it comes to garment workers.
Though many may think the industry has generally put its sweatshop past behind it or that it's only still happening in distant parts of the world, it hits closer to home than one would think.
In late 2019, the U.S. Labor Department investigated factories making clothes for popular brands like Fashion Nova. It found the factories owed millions in back wages and alleged some were paying sewers as little as $2.77 an hour. The factories were all based in Los Angeles.
In the five years since, a major transformation has been happening, and a groundbreaking new law in California might be the major step needed to change the U.S. fashion industry for good.
To understand the major shift, it comes back to how the supply chain for fashion works in the first place.
At a very basic level, fashion brands work with the companies that design the clothes. Those ship fabric to contracted sewing companies, which is where workers put the garments together. It's at this stage that garment workers can face a number of common problems known in the industry:
For starters: payment. Garment workers don't always get hourly rates. Sometimes they're paid in "piece rates," meaning workers...
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