|
| MAIN | HISTORY |
NEWS | VIEWPOINTS |
COMMUNITY | NARRATIVES |
ART/CULTURE | |
Interview with a Garment Factory Worker
Question: What is the general situation of sweatshops in San Francisco Chinatown?
Answer: ' I worked in a garment factory sweatshop in San Francisco Chinatown. From my own experience and from talking with my fellow workers in the garment factory, I found out a lot about the sweatshop situation. There are a lot of them up and down the block, probably at least one in every single block. Most of them are illegal in that they pay the workers lower than the minimum wage which is $1.65 an hour. That is why they don't put up a sign outside the door saying that it's such and such a company. How you can tell that inside is a sweatshop is usually it's a storefront, on the ground floor, either they have curtains all around the windows so you can't look inside or they paint the windows and the door is closed. But when you walk past it you can tell it's a sweatshop. The owners of the sweatshops, depending on how many they own, are in general part of the petit bourgeoisie of Chinatown.
Q: How do they become sweatshop owners?
A: Probably a lot of them started out being seamstresses. After like ten years, when they have saved up enough money and they have learned enough about the trade, they open up a sweatshop themselves. Not every person that works in a sweatshop can later on open up one themselves, though.. Most of the people that work there work for the rest of their lives.
Q: How much do the workers get?
A: The workers are not paid by the hour, but on the piece rate, between $6.00 and $8.00 a dozen, which is 50 cents to 60 cents a piece. This is the standard price in San Francisco Chinatown. The workers sew on an average of a dozen a day, and that is from eight o'clock in the morning to six-thirty or seven at night. Most of them take only half an hour to eat lunch. They eat lunch right there at the sweatshop, they either bring their lunch or cook something right there. When I said workers sew an average of a dozen a day, I meant the experienced workers. When I first worked there, I made five dresses in three days. For workers who have worked in this trade for five to seven years, some of them are super-'fast, they make about two dozens a day, but that's only twelve dollars for like ten hours of work. How they get around paying the workers the minimum is by talking them into not using their social security number. The sweatshop owners have different ways of not reporting to the government.
Q: What are the conditions in the sweatshop as far as health and safety go? Are there any regulations?
A: There are no regulations whatsoever. There is no sick pay. As far as safety goes, sewing machines are relatively safe and since most of the workers are experienced, there's not that much hazard. But one thing that affects your health is the lighting of the place. The lighting is so dim it really affects your eyes. Sewing is a very delicate task and when you have to bend over a sewing machine for like ten hours a day, your back hurts, your eyes hurt.
Q: Who are the workers and why would they take such low wages?
A: The garment workers in Chinatown are all immigrant women. The immigrants are from Hong Kong. Most of them worked in the factories in Hong Kong. They came over here because the conditions in Hong Kong are too oppressive under the British colonial government, they came over and find themselves slaving away for the American capitalists. Most of them are middle-aged. Some of them are young mothers. Most young immigrant women work as waitresses in the Chinatown restaurants where they make a little bit more. The reason why they would take such low wages is because the American capitalist system has created this sweatshop system with the sole purpose of exploiting them and making the sweatshop system their only way of making a living. The big white corporations know that they can exploit Third World immigrants better than the American workers because of language barriers, so instead of hiring the Third World immigrants themselves, they piece out work to these small sweatshops in Third World communities, for example in the Mission and Chinatown, owned by the Third World shop owner who in turn would hire the immigrants to do the work. These small sweatshop owners are not the enemy, they too are exploited by these big companies. They work in the sweatshop themselves, not as long hours, but they do the buttonholes, they sort out the materials delivered by the big companies. They just barely make it to be middle class or lower middle class. They receive a lot of pressure from the big companies too. They have to meet the deadlines and the quota in order to contract work and they in turn have to pressure the workers to work extra hours to get the work done. The big companies give the sweatshop owners something like $1.00 a piece, the sweatshop owner gives 50 cents a piece and the big companies sell the finished product in big stores downtown for $8.00 to $10.00 a piece. How I found out was that one time after I quit the sweatshop job, I got a job at Macy's downtown to do inventory work for twenty hours altogether. I was wandering around the store on my break and I saw these dresses that they sell which are the same material, the same pattern, as the ones I sew selling for $8.00 to $10.00 apiece. It's just super-exploitation.
Section 3: Working Women
Women in Chinatown
New York Schools
Interview with a Garment Worker
A Credit to Your Race
Interview with an Ex-Secretary
GI's and Asian Women
Section 2: Present Workers' Conditions
A Life of Struggle, The Bitter Sadness
Things I Saw and Heard Working in A Restaurant
Interview - Account of An Injured Chinese Restaurant Worker
Restaurant Workers Unite
Working in a Packing House
The Best or the Worst
Story of an "illegal" Immigrant Worker