Winning even such temporary relief has not come easily for U.S. garment and textile unions. Once, these unions could claim some 900,000 members between them. Now, their combined strength is about 350,000. Since 1979, the United States has lost an average of 3,451 textile and apparel jobs every month. Apparel industry spokespeople have been blunt about the new union s prospects, given the state of a global market that pits U.S. workers against their lower wage counterparts around the globe.
Many shops are highly-mobile subcontractors.
Many small New York City garment shops have moved to neighborhoods like Brooklyn s Sunset Park, where they often employ very recent and sometimes undocumented immigrants from Central and Latin America, Mexico and China. At night, passersby can sometimes steal glimpses of workers bent over their sewing machines in dim, poorly ventilated rooms. Wages are often paid by the piece. Employers are notorious for abruptly closing up shop without paying workers what they are owed. Without representation, workers have no real recourse.