Justice for Forever 21 Garment Workers
19 Workers sewed Forever 21 clothes in 6 different downtown Los Angeles sweatshops and are owed hundreds of thousands of dollars
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Nineteen garment workers have joined together to launch a public campaign against Forever 21, a popular retailer of young women's clothing. They sewed the Forever 21 label in six different sweatshops in downtown Los Angeles under deplorable conditions. Forever 21, also called Fashion 21, is a multi-million dollar company based in Los Angeles, with ninety-two stores around the country and forty of those in California. An estimated 95% of its production is done in the U.S with a majority of that in Los Angeles. Do Won Chang is the company's president and co-founder with his wife Jin Sook Chang.
"We worked ten to twelve hours a day for subminimum wages and no overtime," says Esperanza Hernandez, one of the garment workers. "A lot of our factories were dirty and unsafe, with rats and cockroaches running around."
The workers joined together to ask Forever 21 to pay their owed wages and to ensure that all the factories it uses abide by labor laws and respect the workers. The company has so far refused. The workers have launched a public campaign with the Garment Worker Center to educate the public about sweatshops and ask for support in winning justice from Forever 21. They have also filed a lawsuit with the help of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center.
"Workers who sewed Forever 21 started to come to us in March, 2001. By June we had 19 workers from six different factories," says Joann Lo, organizer from the Garment Worker Center. "We realized that using sweatshops is standard business practice for Forever 21."
"Six years ago I was a worker in the El Monte slaveshop case. I worked in the front shop in Los Angeles where we finished the clothes sewed in El Monte," says Araceli Castro. "Unfortunately the abuses continue, and I am involved in this campaign to continue fighting so that the abuses stop and companies like Forever 21 accept their responsibility for the conditions in the factories."
LA IMC Report (By GWC): Garment Workers Launch Campaign Against
Local Sweatshop
http://la.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=9744
What can you do?
1. Call Forever 21 at 213-747-2121 and tell them to pay their garment workers.
2. Invite the GWC and a Forever 21 garment worker to speak at your next meeting.
3. Get your school or club to endorse the campaign and pass
a resolution demanding Forever 21 take responsibility for
their workers.
4. Send 100 postcards to Do Won Chang, President of Forever 21.
5. Adopt a local Forever 21 store and leaflet customers every week.
6. If you are in the Los Angeles area, sign up to receive action
alerts and join workers at we
The Garment Worker Center (GWC) is an independent,
non-profit, community-based organization whose mission is to empower garment
workers in the Greater Los Angeles area to work collectively for an end to
sweatshop abuses in the industry.
1250 S. Los Angeles Ave., Ste. 206, Los Angeles, CA 90015
Tel: 213-748-5866 Fax: 213-748-5876