Garment workers at Jin Shun Inc. on Long Island were cheated out of millions in wages and coached to lie about it, a New York labor official said.

The factory, which supplies clothes for Macy's, Gap, Banana Republic, Victoria's Secret and others, took extraordinary steps to conceal its violations, the New York Labor Department said in a statement.

The department estimated Jin Shun has underpaid more than 100 workers by nearly $3 million since 2005.

Prior to 2005, the factory, under the name of Venture 47, underpaid workers by nearly $2.5 million, the statement said.

The department tagged more than 10,000 items with labels identifying them as made by underpaid workers. Manufacturer Urban Apparel paid $60,000 in underpayments to have the tags removed, the statement said.

This factory paid sweatshop wages, kept fake records, and coached employees to lie, Department Commissioner M. Patricia Smith said.

Factory workers were handed a cheat sheet of answers to give to probing investigators. They were also given two time cards, one that started on Monday and another that started Wednesday, to conceal overtime hours, the statement said.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International


Publication date: 24 July 2008   

Source: UPI-1-20080724-13243200-bc-us-sweatshop.xml

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