Who benefits from "Made in America"?

When you see the “Made in the USA” tag, do you automatically think, “Thank God, it’s not China, Bangladesh, or India”? If your answer is yes, you may want to rethink your relief. It may come as a surprise, but the U.S. isn’t winning any medals for their treatment of garment workers either.

In fact, the U.S. garment industry has successfully sidestepped the minimum wage laws for decades by paying their employees as “pieceworkers.” Bilma, a seamstress in a Los Angeles Fashion District establishment, earns three cents for a zipper, five cents for a sleeve, and assembling an entire dress earns her only fifteen cents. Additionally, the “pieceworker” status gives these factories the extra benefit of having no limit on the number of hours they can keep a worker behind the sewing machine so working fifty, sixty, or seventy hours a week is not unusual for Bilma.

In September 2021, California passed the Garment Worker Protection Act prohibiting piecework and requiring garment workers to make no less than minimum wage. This is a positive step forward, but the implementation of the new law has been a slow process, so Bilma is still classified as a pieceworker and earning $350 for a fifty-hour week. Read more about Bilma and the garment industry sweatshops here.