The Garment Industry of the San Francisco Bay Area in the Recent Past:

In a 1982 study, Loo and Ong found that 47 percent of women who lived in Chinatown and held jobs outside the home were garment workers. By 1990, there were an estimated 30,000 Bay Area workers operating sewing machines in 478 shops registered in San Francisco, and another 150 factories throughout the East Bay. Even these numbers may be low, as many plant owners operated illegally.

By 2002, the estimates dropped to roughly 12,000 garment workers in the San Francisco Bay Area (though some report numbers as high as 20,000), but the region still had the third largest garment industry in the nation, following Los Angeles, home to 80% of America's garment workforce, and New York (3, page 6). Between fifty and seventy five percent of manufacturers were small sweatshops, with three quarters employing less than twenty people, and almost half employing four or fewer (3, page 6). Many of these small factories resided in San Francisco, Oakland Chinatown, and "China Hill," a cheaper area outside Chinatown, where many Vietnamese, Cambodia, and Chinese immigrants reside (5, page 6). Garment workers also lived in neighboring cities including Alameda and San Leandro.

What is the Situation Now?

By 2005, the San Francisco Chronicle (external link) reported that the number of garment workers had decreased to 3,500. Local factories were being forced to close down, as manufacturers increasingly subcontracted work to cheaper factories in other countries. The three largest garment manufacturers in San Francisco, Levi Strauss, Gap, and Esprit, now have most of their production carried out in other countries (4, page 33). This increase in offshore production was fostered by the expiration of a global system of quotas, which had placed restrictions on clothing coming in from more than one hundred member countries of the World Trade Organization, including China and India. The closure of Bay Area factories highlights the job insecurity that garment workers must endure, as well as the struggles faced by their employers, the subcontractors.

The Chronicle reported that shops were located in "the South of Market district, the Mission, Potrero Hill and other industrial areas in San Francisco." These garment shops are probably not what one would picture when hearing the word "sweatshop," but that is likely what they are. The workers reportedly earned just $357, despite working long hours, on the piece-rate system, and under poor conditions. In addition, while many workers were being laid off with the decrease in San Francisco's garment industry, most did not know that they were eligible for federal training and unemployment benefits.

While many manufacturers are increasingly outsourcing their production to offshore companies, there are still exploitive garment shops in the Bay Area today. In February, 2007, the Department of Labor reported that a San Francisco company, "Reuben's Garment Cutting and Marking" was forced to pay $66,066 in withheld wages to 57 employees. The contractor reportedly did not record the full number of hours worked by the employees, paid them in cash on Saturdays, and denied them overtime pay.

In March of 2007, the Economic and Employment Enforcement Coalition visited 24 garment plants in the San Francisco area, issuing citations for "no workers' compensation, not taking required payroll deductions, not requiring proper work permits for minors and not paying proper minimum wage." (Original source: US States News, March 12, 2007 Monday) Clearly, the issue of garment worker exploitation has not yet been eradicated in the Bay Area.