El Monte Sweatshop
date: label: Date Made
content: 1990 -1999
notes: label: Description
content: These negatives illustrate the inhumane working and living conditions of people that worked in sweatshops. On August 2, 1995, police arrested eight operators of the clandestine El Monte garment shop and freed seventy-two Thai nationals who had been working in a form of modern slavery. Workers, recruited in Thailand, were promised good pay and good working conditions. After signing an indenture agreement for $5,000 they were smuggled into the United States with fraudulent documents. The workers were paid about $1.60 an hour with sixteen-hour workdays in horrifying conditions. They were held against their will in a razor wire enclosed complex with an armed guard and were jammed into close living quarters. By 1999, eleven companies Mervyn's, Montgomery Ward, Tomato, Bum International, L.F. Sportswear, Millers Outpost, Balmara, Beniko, F-40 California, Ms. Tops, and Topson Downs, agreed to pay more than $3.7 million dollars to the 150 workers who labored in the El Monte sweatshop. As in most cases of sweatshop production, these companies contend that they did not knowingly contract with operators who were violating the law.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Manufacturing
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: U.S. Department of Labor
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1997.0279.15.6.9
label: catalog number
content: 1997.0279.15.6.9
label: accession number
content: 1997.0279
objectType: label: Object Name
content: photograph
label: Object Name
content: negative
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: plastic; gelatin (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 3.5 cm; 1 3/8 in