A first-of-its-kind bill that aims to protect American garment workers is making its way to the Senate floor.
New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand has introduced the Fashioning Accountability and Building Real Institutional Change (FABRIC) Act, a landmark bill that would prohibit wage theft against garment workers at the federal level for the first time.
The FABRIC Act has the potential to shape the livelihoods of the nearly 100,000 garment workers who are integral to the American fashion industry, but many of whom face exploitative and hazardous working conditions due to loopholes in current labor laws.
Critically, the bill would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and do away with the piece-rate pay system—a practice that allows employers to pay garment workers as little as three cents per piece that they assemble—by restructuring pay rates and ensuring a minimum wage floor. New measures would hold violating retailers liable for wage theft and require manufacturers and contractors to register with the Department of Labor.
