national-lists: [usas] Fwd: Schumer Rips Sweatshops --FYI

>From: "Miriam Kramer"

>To: "Tina Post" , "Pete Sikora"

>Subject: Schumer Rips Sweatshops --FYI

>Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 09:41:35 -0400

>Schumer Rips Sweatshops

>B'klyn case sparks call for

>fed probe of city factories

>By BOB PORT

>Daily News Staff Writer

> Brooklyn garment factory that allegedly subjected its workers to a pattern of labor abuses has spurred Sen. Chuck Schumer to demand a citywide investigation of sweatshops by federal labor inspectors.

>Schumer (D-N.Y.) will make his demands public today at a press conference in front of the Danmar Finishing factory in Bushwick.

>He also will announce proposed legislation to add federal wage and hour cops, protect sweatshop whistleblowers, and embarrass clothing company violators by posting their names on the Internet.

>"I think we need better enforcement, but we need better laws, too," Schumer told the Daily News yesterday.

>"We tell people to live by the American Dream and the American Dream says work hard, but that dream says you're going to get there," Schumer said. "To pull the rug out from under a worker ... is the most fundamentally un-American thing to do."

>According to workers at Danmar, the factory forced them to work overtime without pay and intimidated them with threats of immigration trouble.

>The factory denies the allegations.

>Shakira, the Latina rock star, blasted labor abuses at Danmar when she learned from the Daily News that she'd modeled clothes for a company that had used the factory.

>Kept Pressure On

>Problems at Danmar came to light after a local community group, Make the Road by Walking, and Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-Brooklyn) began putting pressure on federal labor inspectors to act.

>Velázquez has since repeatedly kept pressure on labor officials to get tougher on New York sweatshops.

>This month, the U.S. Department of Labor sued Danmar amid the sudden media attention.

>Schumer is enraged that the Labor Department has stopped a practice begun during the Clinton administration where names of garment factories with labor violations - and their clothing manufacturers - are posted on a Web site each quarter.

>"I'm going to keep putting heat on them until we get something done here," Schumer said. "The evil the sweatshop owner does is so much greater than the pain of seeing some names on the Internet."

>"They deserve to be embarrassed," he said.

>The prospect of new fair labor legislation from Schumer is certain to spark a debate in Congress, where fair labor standards have remained mostly unchanged since the 1940s.

>"I think it has a good chance in the Senate," Schumer said yesterday.

>"If we can get it through the Senate, we can maybe leverage something in the House."

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