NEW YORK—The New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL) tagged more than 10,000 unlawfully manufactured garments produced by the clothing contractor Jin Shun Incorporated located in Long Island City, Queens on Wednesday, July 23.
The factory underpaid approximately 150 Chinese and Latino immigrant workers, according to Patricia Smith, New York State’s Labor Commissioner. The major sweatshop operation was found to be violating overtime and minimum wage laws, falsifying employee time records, and teaching workers to lie to investigators.
“Workers were basically trained to commit perjury,” said Smith.
The NYSDOL placed bright red tags on clothing manufactured by unpaid employees warning that the article has been produced unlawfully. Tagged garments are not to be shipped. Removing the tag may result in fines or imprisonment.
Factory employees worked twelve-hour days for six or seven days a week according to NYSDOL’s Apparel Industry Task Force (AITF). Most workers have work hours of 66 to 72 hours a week.
Employees would punch two sets of time cards to indicate their presence at work. There would be one card for Monday through Wednesday, and another one the rest of the week. However, only one set of cards would be presented to labor investigators.
Upon calculation, investigators found that if the time cards were accurate, workers would finish one piece of clothing in less than one minute.
Employees are paid on a piece-rate basis: 22 cents for most articles of clothing and 40 cents for more difficult pieces, according to investigators.
Payroll records show that employees were paid roughly $250 per week or $1,600 per month.
Jin Shun currently owes $5.3 million in back wages. Prior to 2005, the factory allegedly owed nearly $2.5 million in minimum and overtime wages.
The factory’s manufacturer, Urban Apparel based in Manhattan, wrote a check for $60,000 to remove the tags from some garments. Currently, Jin Shun faces fines, red tagging, and heavier monitoring.
Garments produced by Jin Shun are sold by many big-name retailers including Macy’s, Gap, Banana Republic, Express, Victoria’s Secret, Limited, and Coldwater Creek.
Both Limited and Gap have cooperated with the NYSDOL and pledged compensation. Some brands produced by Jin Shun sold at Macy’s are Ultraflirt and INC.
The factory, owned by Jikai Lin and Zhang Yun Chen, gave its workers “cheat sheets” with answers to various questions labor investigators might ask. Workers were told to memorize these answers and repeat them when interrogated.
Documents obtained by The Epoch Times show the extent of the systematic use of these memorized answers when interrogated by labor investigators from AITF.
Some questions asked were: “Are you happy working here? Does the boss scold you? Is he nice to you?” Workers were told to answer: “I am happy here. We get along with the boss. He is very nice to us and treats us well.”
The amount of money these workers made was also questioned. “What is your hourly wage?” an investigator would ask. The reply would be: “Not sure, but always over $7.75 depending on the job complexity.”
“It was pretty bad because we were supposed to be paid $7.50 [per hour], sometimes we were paid three or four dollars per hour,” said a former worker who has worked at Jin Shun for two years and wishes to remain anonymous.
Jin Shun, which was named Venture 47 before 2005, has again changed its name to Garlee NY Inc. after having been subject to several NYSDOL investigations.
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