Undercover DiarySweatshop:
Legally, it describes a factory with one or more violations of labor law. Emotionally, it conjures images of desperate workers, turned into just another cost-cutting device.
Nowhere, it seems, is the problem so pervasive as in the $89 billion a year apparel industry. In the U.S., the Department of Labor estimates that more than half of the 22,000 manufacturing shops qualify as sweatshops today. From October 1995 to June 1996, the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor has investigated 695 garment factories, finding more than half in violation. In the same period, labor officials have recovered more than $2 million in back wages due to more than 6000 garment workers. But there are less than 800 investigators to enforce the labor laws that protect the estimated 1 million garment industry workers, and the often concealed nature of the modern-day sweatshop presents a difficult challenge. After some recent high-profile labor violations brought the issue to the mainstream, celebrity endorsers, retailers, manufactures and consumers are all searching for answers-prompting a very public dialogue about how the clothes on your back actually got there.