AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Politicians like to talk about making more things in America. Well, Sarah Gonzalez from our Planet Money podcast has this story of what that work is actually like for garment workers in the U.S.
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SARAH GONZALEZ: Maria doesn't speak any English, she says.
MARIA: No, no, no. (Speaking Spanish).
GONZALEZ: But she does know some.
MARIA: Small, large, extra large.
GONZALEZ: Like sizes, label - all words related to her job.
MARIA: El Mister.
GONZALEZ: El Mister?
MARIA: (Speaking Spanish).
GONZALEZ: The boss, you just call him Mister.
MARIA: Or la Missus, Missus.
GONZALEZ: And I'm like, that's English, Maria.
MARIA: (Laughter) Oh.
GONZALEZ: Mister, Missus (laughter).
MARIA: Missus (laughter).
GONZALEZ: Maria is only 73 years old, but she has the presence of both a much older, comforting grandma and somehow also this, like, easily delighted kid. She has those little grandma sandals on and a little white flower tucked behind her ear. She's been in the U.S. almost 30 years and has done the same job the entire time.
MARIA: (Speaking Spanish).
GONZALEZ: She's a trimmer...
MARIA: (Speaking Spanish).
GONZALEZ: ...At a garment factory in Los Angeles.
MARIA: (Speaking Spanish).
GONZALEZ: And when I ask Maria what a trimmer does in a U.S. garment factory, Maria reaches for my shirt.
MARIA: (Speaking Spanish).
GONZALEZ: She tucks her hand under the bottom of my shirt at the hem, the back of her warm fingers on my bare stomach, the way only a grandma can do.
MARIA: (Laughter).
GONZALEZ: And she points to all the places on my top where a piece of loose thread would be left behind - at the hem, where the sleeves were sewn on. The trimmer's job is to cut off all the leftover thread.
MARIA: (Speaking Spanish).
GONZALEZ: Just snip, snip, snip, snip, snipping all day. And the pay?
MARIA: (Speaking Spanish).
GONZALEZ: Maria gets paid 15 cents for every garment she works on. Now, for complicated pieces, she has asked for more.
MARIA: (Speaking Spanish).
GONZALEZ: El Mister.
She'll be like, Mister, come. Look how much trimming this needs.
MARIA: OK, OK. (Speaking Spanish). No, (speaking Spanish).
GONZALEZ: He'll be like, fine. You want an extra cent? No, 2 cents, she'll say.
MARIA: OK, OK. (Speaking Spanish).
GONZALEZ: Getting paid by the piece is very common in this industry. The person on the iron in LA might get 50 cents per garment. The person who sewed on the sleeves, did the bottom hem, maybe 12 cents.
LYNN BOORADY: Well, actually, that's better. When I started in the industry over 30 years ago, we laughed and called it a penny a pocket because that's what they were paid for every pocket they would put on.
GONZALEZ: Lynn Boorady at Oklahoma State University used to help figure out what U.S. garment workers would be paid per piece. Like, she'd watch them on the assembly line.
BOORADY: Eighteen-inch seam takes X amount of seconds to make. I would keep track, watching their movements.
GONZALEZ: So you're standing there with the stopwatch. Like, OK, she did that in 30 seconds?
BOORADY: Oh, yeah. And I'm marking that down right in front of - yes.
GONZALEZ: OK, if you get a nice, easy T-shirt that you can move through quickly, you can earn decent pay making pennies on the piece. But if you get, like, I don't know, a jacket, sometimes working as fast as you possibly can, you do not get close to making minimum wage. Workers often wreck their bodies working as fast as they can for long hours trying to make more money.
OK, wait, let me show you. So this is my garment that I bought.
BOORADY: OK.
GONZALEZ: I show Lynn a garment I bought made in the USA. It's a purple sports bra from a fancy, pricey American brand selling for $62, and it's good quality. You can feel it in the fabric. But there are no cups, no liner pads, no wire.
BOORADY: It's a very basic bra.
GONZALEZ: And still, Lynn says it could have taken 13 different garment workers to make it.
BOORADY: Just to sew the bra. I'm not talking about any of the prep work.
GONZALEZ: Would, like, a generous estimate be, like, every single person who touched this piece got 40 cents?
BOORADY: Forty cents is probably too high.
GONZALEZ: So we'll go with 30 cents. Thirty cents times 13 people would mean, theoretically, workers were paid $3.90 to make this bra.
BOORADY: Yeah.
GONZALEZ: And this is, like, made in America.
BOORADY: Mm-hmm.
GONZALEZ: So this is, like, as good as it gets.
BOORADY: Yep.
GONZALEZ: There is a perception that if clothes are made in the USA and also good quality and expensive, that the working conditions, the pay must be decent. But experts say a $20 T-shirt, a $120 T-shirt, the workers likely got 20 cents either way to work on it.
BOORADY: We have the image of a well-run factory that's air-conditioned, where people get nice breaks and go home to their families at night. And it's just not that. I've seen worse factories in America than I have seen overseas.
GONZALEZ: We spoke to many workers, including a worker who says they worked on these purple sports bras in LA, paid by the piece. And in California, piece rate pay is actually not legal in this industry anymore. It's wage theft as of four years ago. That worker and workers like Maria are supposed to be getting paid hourly. This is why we're not using Maria's full name. She fears retaliation. 'Cause, you know, if factories get wind that someone is poking around on how they pay workers, there's this thing that can happen. Lynn has seen factories close up, relocate to avoid having to back-pay workers.
BOORADY: When the government came in, they would say, sorry, that company no longer exists. We're this owner.
GONZALEZ: But it would be the same owners?
BOORADY: Of course.
GONZALEZ: Just a different name?
BOORADY: Oh, it's all illegal. But you have to catch them at it.
GONZALEZ: Sometimes, garment workers are asked to clock in and clock out even though they do not get paid by the hour. Factories will do this to try to avoid being caught by state investigators. They'll even coach workers on what color the paycheck would be if they got a paycheck. Maria is proud that she's been able to get by and that she raised her kids working as a domestic garment worker. But she cannot imagine that many Americans would want this job.
(Speaking Spanish).
MARIA: No. (Speaking Spanish). No.
GONZALEZ: She can actually barely contain herself at the thought.
MARIA: (Speaking Spanish, laughter).
GONZALEZ: Sarah Gonzalez, NPR News.
CHANG: And you can hear from more workers and listen to Sarah's entire report on the Planet Money podcast episode called "Made In America." Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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