The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "garment workers" ...
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Dateline NBC: Clothes Line
The authors investigated the true cost of the global trade in clothing, focusing on the price international communities pay so that U.S. consumers can continue to pay bargain prices for their clothes. The investigation traced the life of a pair of pants from Wal-mart to the company in Bangladesh that makes them. The authors followed the life of a worker in that factory and explored the violations of domestic law and international corporate codes of conduct by the company owners.
Tags: Garment; textiles; international trade; Wal-mart; Bangladesh; labor laws; corporate codes of conduct; retailers
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Made in the USA
A three-month investigation by U.S. News & World Report found that as many as half of all women's garments made in America are produced in whole or in part by factories paying less than minimum wage, flout federal safety laws and require workers to spend 60 hours or more at their sewing machines per week.
Tags: Immigrants; sweatshops; garment workers; federal labor laws; child labor; U.S. Labor Department; contractor; apparel industry
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Sweat and Tears (Sweatshop series)
A Daily News investigation reveals that "New York City's garment industry routinely violates federal and state wage and hour laws." All major retailers sell clothes made in New York sweatshops by exploiting illegal Chinese immigrants. Garment workers work long hours for seven days a week, and get wages below the minimum of $5.15 per hour. Federal labor officials, as well as a state labor task force, keep "violations secret from retailers to protect brand name reputations and preserve business for local manufacturers and contractors." The investigation examines the price-making principles of the apparel market, and finds that avoiding illegal practices will have to either raise the clothes' prices, or cut the retailers' profits.
Tags: CAR; business; wages; unions; Chinese immigrants; illegal immigration; Federal Trade Commission; FOI requests; exploitation; teen fashions; Jenna LaneRampage; Dollhouse; Periscope; Asian Americans; civil rights violations; INS; OSHA; workplace safety; database mapping project
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The Shame of Saipan
ABC News 20/20 reports "the second part of a two-year investigation into the abuse of human rights on the island of Saipan, a US trust territory in the South Pacific. (This is a follow up to the ... story "Made in the U.S.A (file 15202), which aired in 1998.) Upon returning to Saipan, Ross and Schwartz found that the same loopholes in the law that permitted American garment manufacturers to exploit imported, indentured Chines labor were now being used to operate a thriving sex business.... In addition, ABC reporter Brian Ross personally confronted retail giants Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger, whose companies do great amounts of business in Saipan factories, about the lack of follow-up to their earlier promises to end human rights abuses... And finally with the use of undercover video ABC News documented how businessmen on the island believed themselves to be safe from reform because of the backing of US Representative Tom DeLay, the powerful minority whip of the US Congress.."
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Made in America
A 20/20 investigation finds that top American clothing manufacturers, including Ralph Lauren, the Gap, Liz Claiborne and the Disney Company (parent of ABC), are using Chinese workers housed in crowded and often rat infested barracks on the Pacific island of Saipan to produce clothing labeled, "Made in the U.S.A." The workers have to pay off government officials in China for the right to work in Saipan and are forbidden to participate in any religious, political or union activity.
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No title (id: 13925)
Dateline penetrated the dense network of sweatshops in the garment industry to find out what conditions are like from a sweatshop worker's perspective. The series is an unconventional report from an insider - a Dateline employee, who after several weeks of sewing lessons, went to work in garment factories in New York and Los Angeles. She documented her experiences on tape and in a journal. (Sept. 9, Oct. 10, 1996)
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No title (id: 13272)
Too many of the clothes made in this country are produced by women working endless hours in sweatshops. Ms. goes undercover to give a firsthand report of why the garment industry is regularly sited for violations of wage, child labor, health and safety laws. (January/February 1996)
Tags: Zia Made in the U.S.A. Worker safety Labor exploitation Narrative 7 pgs.
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No title (id: 12552)
WFLD-TV investigates clothing sold in Chicago's largest apparel stores and how it is produced by illegal, underaged and underpaid garment workers in Central America who earn less than forthy cents an hour for their labor. (Sept. 18 - 19, 25, 1995)
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The Social Responsibility Act
In the garment industry, cutthroat competition means that manufacturers are responsible for sweatshop conditions by paying many contractors too little for them, in turn, to pay workers even the minimum wage. Wealthy apparel manufacturers are rarely held responsible, however, because of lax enforcement of labor laws.
Tags: None
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No title (id: 9629)
El Sol de Texas (Dallas) exposes the practice by the Texas garment industry of using home sewers to do contract work; the work is illegal, and the industry uses it to circumvent minimum wage laws; the Dillard's department store chain, among others, buy the illegally manufactured clothes, July 1, 1993.
Tags: TX Pierson International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union 3 pages