FEDERAL SHUTDOWN STALLS ANTI-SWEATSHOP DRIVE
Byline: Joanna Ramey — with contributions from Joyce Barrett
WASHINGTON — A halt in the war against sweatshops was cited by both President Clinton and Labor Secretary Robert Reich as they expressed their concerns Wednesday over the effects of the prolonged shutdown of much of the federal government.
The two gave their assessments of the damage being caused Americans at separate press conferences.
“Ninety-five percent of all workplace safety activities have been shut down, and all sweatshop enforcement has been stopped,” Clinton said. He added that as long as the shuttering — now 20 days old — continues, the U.S. “could not enforce our trade laws to protect our workers and products.”
Reich, referring to his agency’s anti-sweatshop campaign, said, “That war has temporarily ended.”
To emphasize the impact, Reich stood among 50 crates of unopened letters from retired workers complaining about problems receiving pensions.
The toll is widespread, Reich said, listing depletion in 28 states of federal aid for workers displaced by international trade as another example. In addition, unemployment insurance has run out in eight states, with another five states close to exhausting their funds.
While he declared that the nation’s economy is still healthy, Reich said he’s basing this assumption on limited information since release of various government reports measuring the economy’s vigor have been delayed by the federal budget stalemate between Congress and the administration.
“By and large, the economy is still moving in a very positive direction,” Reich said. “One of the problems is the private sector does rely on this information to make determinations as to everything from what to order, when to order and how optimistic to be about inventory and sales.”
Even if a budget agreement is hammered out by week’s end, all government reports, such as the originally scheduled release Friday of employment figures or next week’s Consumer Price Index, will be delayed by about two weeks, Reich said.
Regarding sweatshops, Wage and Hour administrator Maria Echaveste said after the news conference that Labor law inspectors will have to quickly regroup to regain momentum in the sewing shop crackdown she said was building before the shuttering.
“We were right in the middle of creating a tremendous amount of pressure on the garment industry,” Echaveste said. “We also had the attention of retailers in a very significant way. I think the longer this shutdown goes on, the longer people are going to say, ‘Well, they won’t be able to recover their momentum, so let’s ignore them.’ We’re not going to go away.”
But even in stasis, Labor’s campaign to persuade apparel manufacturers and retailers to sell garments made in sewing shops that are monitored for Labor law compliance is causing controversy.
Echaveste said several cases in which sewing shops were found to owe workers thousands of dollars in back wages have been put on hold due to the shutdown. She noted two such instances, arising from a Labor sweep of Chinatown in New York during November, in which investigators were close to seeing back wages repaid. One involved a contractor, Bali, who sewed dresses for Leslie Fay and owed 54 workers $80,000. The other case involved a contractor named Dynamite Fashions that Echaveste said produced garments for J.C. Penney and owed 22 workers $30,000 in back wages.
A Penney spokesman said the retailer never did business with Dynamite, although workers for the now-defunct shop did contact store officials about their case.
“They’re wrong,” the spokesman said of Labor officials tying Dynamite to Penney’s. “J.C. Penney has never done business with Dynamite Fashions, and we have no record of any supplier or any subcontractor of any supplier dealing with that factory.”
A Leslie Fay official said the company has already paid Bali’s workers their back wages; this occurred before Christmas and after the government shutdown. Joan Ruby, vice president and general counsel, said Leslie Fay officials are waiting for the government to reopen before formalizing some kind of agreement with Labor officials regarding contractors it uses. She declined to elaborate.
In other cases, manufacturers have agreed to a contractor monitoring system prescribed by Labor officials.
Meanwhile, Clinton hit out at the shutdown as an “unnatural disaster born of a cynical political strategy,” and placed the blame squarely on House Republicans, who blocked an attempt Wednesday to bring to a vote a plan that would reopen the government through Jan. 12. Introduced by Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole (R., Kan.), the Senate approved the plan Tuesday. House Speaker Newt Gingrich would only say that the resolution was not in order under House rules. His spokesman, Tony Blankley, predicted that had it come up for a vote, it would have failed narrowly.
Dole and Gingrich were to negotiate again Wednesday evening with Clinton at the White House on a balanced budget. Neither would comment on the President’s harsh words before beginning talks.