‘Made in America’ should mean ‘Made with Dignity’

In his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden emphasized investing in American manufacturing. He declared, "We will buy American to make sure everything from the deck of an aircraft carrier to the steel on highway guardrails is made in America from beginning to end. All of it. All of it."

Missing from conversations about revitalizing American manufacturing is concern for workers who are denied wages they have rightfully earned. The abuses suffered by victims of wage theft are practically invisible. Yet they are so egregious as to be from the era before labor unions, before civil rights, even before the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Los Angeles has one of the largest manufacturing workforces in the country. It also leads the nation in wage theft. Packs of crooked employers prey on the largest and most vulnerable populations of our city -- immigrants, people of color and women.

The definition of wage theft is simple: Employers cheating employees out of the wages (and benefits) they have earned. But wage theft comes in many forms: Employers violating minimum wage laws, not paying overtime, forcing workers to work off the clock, or withholding final paychecks altogether. Reports by the UCLA Labor Center estimate that every week disreputable Los Angeles businesses steal more than $25 million in wages from their workers. You read that right. $25 million every week stolen from our communities and our local economy. Los Angeles is the wage theft capital of the United States.

To put the size of L.A.s low-wage immigrant population in perspective, only 16% of U.S. workers are foreign-born. By contrast, in L.A.'s garment industry -- the nation's cut-and-sew garment assembly capital -- 42% of skilled workers are immigrants. Add these to the thousands of employees being exploited in nursing homes, truck driving, building maintenance, hotels, restaurants, construction sites, warehouses, and car wash businesses.

What about the minimum wage? The Garment Worker Center, a worker rights organization leading an anti-sweatshop movement to improve conditions for tens of thousands of Los Angeles garment workers, reports that garment workers' files show an average pay of about $5 an hour, while the minimum hourly wage in Los Angeles County became $15 as of July 1, 2021. On top of that, almost 80% of workers were denied legally required overtime pay.

Enough is enough. How can we reduce homelessness when low-wage workers cannot count on their paychecks to pay rent? How can we realistically address economic inequality when tens of thousands of workers are being deprived of the minimum wage?

It's not that laws against wage theft don't exist. California has strong labor laws on the books, and we strengthened these laws with Senate Bill 62 during the 2021 California legislative session. SB 62 enforces existing protections by creating an upstream liability to prevent bad-actor manufacturers from avoiding the law by layering garment contracts. It ends the minimum wage carve-out in the garment industry that has allowed manufacturers to pay workers by the piece. This new law also provides a backstop to prevent garment workers from ever receiving less than the minimum wage, while still allowing for bonuses and incentives for work completed well and more quickly.

Wage theft persists because of lack of enforcement and accountability. Even when wage theft violations are reported and prosecuted, it's difficult to hold perpetrators accountable because businesses often layer contracts through subcontracting, shut down, or change names, allowing them to avoid formal liability, continue operating and stiffing workers.

We need political willpower and cooperation among city, county and state authorities to hold bad actors accountable and deter others from unlawful practices. To disband the wolf pack preying on our most vulnerable communities, we need dedicated officials driven to use these laws for the people who need them most.

"Made in America" should mean "Made with Dignity." 