FOREVER 21 IS SOOOO CHEAP by www.garmentworkercenter.org

Garment workers who sewed clothes sold by Forever 21 were paid less than the minimum wage and worked in sweatshops in downtown L.A. with rats and cockroaches. Forever 21 refuses to pay these workers their owed wages while it estimates earning over $500 million in sales this year alone.


SHOP WITH A CONSCIENCE! BOYCOTT FOREVER 21! by www.garmentworkercenter.org

Call Forever 21's President Do Won Chang at 1-800-966-1355–Tell him to pay these workers and take responsibility for the conditions in the factories that sew the clothes he sells in his stores. www.garmentworkercenter.org



At the bottom of this page find the name of nine companies which have demonstrated a commitment to improve the wage and working conditions of their employees.

Garment Workers protest against Forever 21 unfair labors practices and sweatshops 2

A 70 SECONDS VIDEO 3

Garment Workers protest against Forever 21 unfair labors practices and sweatshops 4

Garment Workers protest against Forever 21 unfair labors practices and sweatshops 5

Garment Workers protest against Forever 21 unfair labors practices and sweatshops 6

Garment Workers protest against Forever 21 unfair labors practices and sweatshops 7

Garment Workers protest against Forever 21 unfair labors practices and sweatshops 8

Garment Workers protest against Forever 21 unfair labors practices and sweatshops 9

Garment Workers protest against Forever 21 unfair labors practices and sweatshops 10

Garment Workers protest against Forever 21 unfair labors practices and sweatshops 11

Garment Workers protest against Forever 21 unfair labors practices and sweatshops 12

Garment Workers protest against Forever 21 unfair labors practices and sweatshops 13

99% of the $13 price tag of a “glamourous” blouse goes into Forever 21's pockets, its manufacturers’, and their contractors’. 1%, or 19 cents, of that $13 went to the garment worker who sewed the entire blouse!


SHOP WITH A CLEAN CONSCIENCE by www.garmentworkercenter.org

You’ll have peace of mind by buying from these companies, cooperatives, and organizations. Employers can either treat workers with dignity by paying respectable wages, or they can exploit the labor of workers and create hazardous and unfair work environment for them. We see these favorites as doing the former.

Whenever you shop, remember that the following companies have demonstrated a commitment to improve the wages and working conditions of their employees. Shop with a conscience. Help workers by supporting these union shops, worker cooperatives and fair trade products.

Sweatshop Watch Gifts
Be among the first to sport Sweatshop Watch’s hip new t-shirt or environmentally friendly totebag. The shirts are union made and the totes are from a women’s cooperative. Both are $20, plus shipping. See www.sweatshopwatch.org for ordering details.


Global Exchange

Global Exchange features unique gifts from around the world as well as educational resources about human rights issues. Artisans create each of the Fair Trade crafts using designs passed down for centuries. Check out: store.glovalexchange.org


Union Mall

Union Mall is the first shopping mall where you can’t find a stitch that was made in a sweatshop. Every merchant in this mall sells only union made clothing. Shop around in good conscience at: www.nosweatshop.com


Maggie’s Organics

Maggie’s Organics is one of the few companies in the apparel industry that offers 100% organic clothing. They have created a very unique commitment to women’s sewing cooperative in Nicaragua to ensure fair labor standards are met. Contact them at www.organicclothes.com or 1(800) 609-8593.


Justice Clothing

Justice Clothing is a one stop-shop for union-made & non-sweatshop apparel! For every item of clothing, you can learn who made the clothes, where and under what conditions, and even what independent labor union represents the workers. Visit them at www.justiceclothing.com

Powell’s Books

Powell’s Books is a legendary independent bookstore with an all union workforce in Portland, Oregon. Their inventory is expansive, and their website can handle orders from across the nation. Visit: www.powells.com


Fuerza Unida

The former Levi’s workers in San Antonio, Texas, formed a unique women’s sewing cooperative that makes and silk screens t-shirts, canvas bags and flags. Call (211) 927-2294 to make your orders today.


Fair Trade Federation

Fair Trade Federation is an association of wholesalers, retailers and producers whose members are commited to providing fair wages and good employment opportunities to economically disadvantageed workers and farmers worldwide. Look at the FTF website at www.fairtradefederation.org


Market Place India

Market Place India is a nonprofit organization that sells products made by women artisans in India. It began with low-income women who chose to make hand-made textiles as a means to provide women with employment in Bombay, India. To order a catalog call 1 (800) 736-8905 or order on-line at www.marketplaceindia.org

Please visit our websites at www.sweatshopwatch.org and www.garmentsworkercenter.org to find out what else you and your loved ones can do to put an end to sweatshops.

Garment worker Center

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Images like this can be found all over the city. Small sweetshops are everywhere. You pass them everyday without knowing. They are invisible, until you notice them. The workers inside are from all over the world, they are here without passports, they have no work visa and most are working below well below minimum wage to repay those criminals that smuggled them into this city. They have no union, no healthcare, nothing. They are forced to work for years until they have paid off those who trafficked them. They are traded from shop to shop like cattle. They have no protection under the law. In short they have no rights. This is slavery, by definition this is actual slavery.

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these people are here illegally, yet they expect all the comforts the welfare state can provide them.

too fucking bad.

these unfortunate criminals are undermining labor costs in the US (putting their own lives in peril) AND they're obbing third world countries that follow trade rules the opportunity to make those same clothes.

Derrick Samson is blaming the victims.
It's global capital that is robbing the world, not the immigrants feeing the war and starvation that is the product of globalism.

Derrick expresses a typical middle class anti-immigrant attitude; the middle class support the capitalist system because they believe the lie that some day if they work hard enough they too will be rich. They fear the poor and the working class because they feel they undercut them.

Unless Derrick Samson is part of that 1% that control 90% of the world's wealth, then he too is being exploited. He may be part of the middle class who enjoys higher wages and more privileges but he is still a wage slave.


No one is free until everyone is free.

People who cross illegally don't expect equal treatment. They are planning to be here temporarily, to work long hours, and to send money home.

As workers and as people, we need to extend equal working conditions to all workers. If business owners are allowed to abuse some workers, all workers lose out. If people are allowed to abuse, then all people are diminished.

This is why there was such a vigorous debate about slavery, and why slavery was the moral argument that led to the civil war (there were other forces as well, but the moral argument compelled the nation). Slavery is fundamentally undemocratic, because it creates two separate legal classifcations of person. Today, immigration status seems to have become a new way to implement slavery.

The undocumented worker doesn't think of themself as a slave, but, the fact remains that they are a second class citizen. We claim to be a classless society, where people are equal, and it's incumbent on us to make this ideal a fact.

"these unfortunate criminals"

The movement of people has been criminalized.

The economies of the US and Mexico are increasingly integrated. This is happening because of NAFTA, immigration, and because the US precipitates a "brain drain" on Mexico (and Mexico upon other nations in Latin America).

More fundamentally, American expansion into the former Mexico set the stage. And before that conditions were created in the Spanish invasion of the Americas, and the English colonization of other parts of America.

So, the movement of people is criminalized, but when the nation and state invade and destroy each other, it's not criminal. When people are forced into migration by war, its the people, not the governments, that are considered criminal.

"More fundamentally, American expansion into the former Mexico set the stage. And before that conditions were created in the Spanish invasion of the Americas, and the English colonization of other parts of America."

What does this have to do with anything today? There were wars fought a century or more ago, and Mexico lost them. If they'd won, Texas and California would just be larger versions of the "beautiful" piss-smelling Tijuana we see today.

Every leftist wants to blame the US (an open society is an easy target) but not one of them will admit that many other countries simply don't have their shit together, their populations are ignorant and their rulers' corruption make our government saintly by comparison.

It's too bad this Iraq thing got in the way of invading Mexico (already invading us) and wiping out their corrupt narco-terrorist/socialist dictatorship.

Huge fences make for good neighbors.



So, the movement of people is criminalized, but when the nation and state invade and destroy each other, it's not criminal. When people are forced into migration by war, its the people, not the governments, that are considered criminal.

It's called "historical context," something which you don't care about, obviously.

The laws must be reformed. The problem with getting the law changed is this...

The Republicans, united, fight against reform. The rich business owners like illegal immigration because it brings in low-wage, unprotected labor, so the don't want reform. They probably like illegal immigrants, generally; but they go along with the anti-immigrant party majority because they provide the votes.

The Democrats are split too. There are the labor folks, who dislike immigration because it lowers wages. Then, there are the liberties folks, who support rights for immigrants. The Dems are split on the issue, and end up unable implement immigration reform.

Immigration from Mexico has been a fact of American life since 1848, when America won the war. Many came over in the 1880s and the 1910s, due to war there. Then there were the Braceros. And after that, plain old immigrants of both statuses.

What this reflects is basic capital migration. People are just moving around to be where the money is. When the money and people left the village, the village suffered, and America prospered. Over time, if the money doesn't get sent back to the village, the people will have no choice but to migrate, or face starvation.

It's simple economics. It happens within America too. Just look at the rust belt. As the talent leaves the town, the town becomes poor. Drive though the northern midwest, and, you see a lot of towns that look run down, like LA's "hoods", except that, in those cities, those towns are the "nice" places... and the "nice" midwestern towns have more vacant retail spaces than the "hood" in LA. What happened was that a lot of talent left to seek fortune in places like LA, and subsequently caused these cities to improve.

In California, a lot of this talent is coming from other countries, including Mexico.

And the upshot is that the home village suffers in the short term. In the long term, it may benefit if the migrants can move back and reinvest in their homeland. That would be a John Cougar Mellencamp bittersweet happy ending there.

Reversing the flow
If we could improve conditions there by allowing the the popular resistance to such organizations as the IMF. World bank and particularly the goons of the CIA there would be a mass re migration back home. To a familiar culture and roots where a life could be made. Betcha.

"To a familiar culture and roots where a life could be made. Betcha."

None of that is going to change the fact that it will still be a Mexican culture that they will be going back to. A culture which has not exactly set the woods on fire.

...oooh, I bet those Mexicans are FUMING at the contempt you heap on their race...

...er..oh...that's right...you don't hold their "race" in contempt...it's their 'culture" that you despise...

...I forgot... yer wonna dem dere newfangled ray-cists!

...fuckin' shitpile.....

...I don't know about all that but I do know this...

I'm very honored and impressed that you actually take the time to search and respond to all my posts from the last few days.

Seems I have quite a hold on you old man.

...yeah, shitpile republicans (pardon the redundancy) make me horny...

...they're soooo SEXY when they lie...

...Let me win once.

I'm sick of getting my ass handed to me.

VIVE PAPA DESSALINES ! ! ! NO TO SLAVERY ...