Workers have been raising one battle after another against the
giant sweatshop operator DKNY. It began in 1998 when women workers
in one DKNY factory (East Point/Choe/Couture) spoke out against
the long hours and lack of overtime pay and demanded their right
to go to the bathroom (the factory bathrooms were often padlocked).
A few Chinese workers organized together and brought their demands
to their union (UNITE) and the Labor Department, yet all of these
efforts were in vain because DKNY executives and Donna Karan have
very close relations with the union leadership. NMASS, on behalf
of the DKNY workers, wrote a letter to DKNY. DKNY answered the
workers' complaints by firing all of those who dared to stand
up. At the same time, a union official went to the factory to
threaten the other workers not to follow the "troublemakers."
When these tactics backfired, DKNY closed the factory altogether,
fired most of the workers, and moved the garments into another
union shop (Jen Chu), located a couple of blocks away.
NMASS helped to bring the Chinese and Latino workers together
and organized protests and press conferences in front of the DKNY
office and retail store. The workers also filed a lawsuit for
wage violations, called for a consumer boycott, and tabled and
leafleted in the heart of garment industry center to inform other
workers about DKNY's sweatshop conditions. Unlike most other boycott
campaigns that often rely on the consumer and become short lived,
the Boycott DKNY campaign was successful because we organized
and relied on the producers - the garment workers. The campaign
quickly elevated to the national and international arenas. It
became DKNY & UNITE!'s biggest nightmare. The Latina women
workers also filed a lawsuit against DKNY for discrimination.
The Latinas were searched daily before they left the factory,
and were forced to work for lower pay sewing by hand because "their
eyes were bigger than the Chinese."
In June 2001, another group of workers came out from the DKNY
"runaway" shop, Jen Chu, and energized the campaign.
Aside from picketing, the workers also filed a class action lawsuit
against DKNY and all of its contractors. This time, 20 to 30 garment
workers joined in. Many of them are Fujianese and some are undocumented.
Not only did they sue DKNY in Federal Court, they also won a suit
against Jen Chu Apparel before the National Labor Relations Board.
With DKNY workers in the midst of launching a holiday action to
renew the boycott, DKNY did not dare to delay any longer or wait
for the Liberty Apparel case* to be resolved. Recently DKNY entered
a settlement with the workers in both the discrimination case
against the Latinas and the class action lawsuit for wage violations.
Under the settlement, workers in these two cases received close
to a million dollars but no apology. In light of the workers rising
up in New York, DKNY moved most of its operations overseas to
areas where worker organizing is relatively weak, like Toronto,
Canada. DKNY thought by paying the workers a little the boycott
would go away-They are damn wrong!
NMASS, along with CSWA, invites everyone to attend the December
5th celebration of the DKNY victory and our recent First Amendment
Victory with the city of Albany and urges people to continue
to boycott DKNY garments until DKNY brings back the work to New
York, corrects all of its wrongdoing, and rehires the unjustly
fired workers.
* The twenty-six Fujianese garment workers who sewed Liberty Apparel's
garments under sweatshop conditions are appealing a decision in
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The decision
ignored a widely accepted interpretation of the Fair Labor Standards
Act (FLSA) that established general contractors (manufacturers)
as employers of their contracted workers under federal law and
thereby accountable for the conditions under which they worked.
Liberty Apparel denied workers minimum wage and overtime pay,
and even withheld wages for four to eight months. Like DKNY, Liberty
representatives often visited the factory, and they also promised
workers they would be paid if they rushed to meet tighter deadlines.
This ruling will impact not only the garment industry, but also
other industries with subcontratcing. The case is being watched
closely around the country. At the present time many manufacturers
are dragging out other garment cases where workers are pursuing
them, pending the outcome of Liberty.
NMASS Home | DKNY
Workers & The "Ain't I A Woman?! Campaign"
The Liberty Apparel Case
