The Fight for Fair Wages in Fast Fashion
Remake has helped workers get billions of dollars in lost wages from companies like Zara and Victoria’s Secret.
For 29 years, Santiago clocked into work at a Los Angeles garment factory before the sun was up. He worked 12-hour shifts operating a coverstitch machine, sewing pieces together for a women’s apparel manufacturer. His rates were based on how many pieces he completed during their work hours. “I would make $200, or $280 a week, and my pay was not set,” he said.
After California Garment Worker Protection Act passed in 2022, Santiago started getting paid the state’s minimum wage of $16 an hour. He also now works eight-hour shifts and is guaranteed overtime pay. “The hours are better and I make better wages,” he said. “I have more time to do other things outside of work.”
The passage of the garment worker protection bill was a historic win for the 45,000 mostly immigrant garment workers in the state who were paid as little as $5 an hour based on the piece rate system. And it wouldn’t have happened without the work of groups like the Garment Workers Center, Fashion Revolution and Remake, a fashion advocacy group that centers garment workers’ rights.
Remake’s 1,900 ambassadors sent letters to Gov. Gavin Newsom, posted on social media and protested outside the San Francisco headquarters of Levi Strauss & Co., which paid its overseas workers $26 a month.
“Movement through legislation is where the real change happens,” said sustainable fashion designer and Remake ambassador Sophia Marie Poulos. “Making it fun and inviting at a local level is how we spread the word.”
Remake’s philosophy is that you can’t advance climate justice in the fashion industry without focusing on the people at the heart of the production — 80% of whom are women. In California, the majority of these women are Latina. Outside the U.S., many live in countries like Bangladesh and Cambodia, which are already experiencing the most extreme effects of climate change.
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