British Fashion Council Plans Celebration

The New Cashmere Sweaters by Pure and Peter Scott

August London Retail Sales Figures Are Encouraging


  Del.ico.us
  Google
  Yahoo MyWeb
  Blink
  Digg
  Furl
  Simpy
  Spurl

 
 
 
 
 
 

Unionised Clothing Shop Closes in Salvador

Tuesday 10th of July 2007 07:53:09 PM

Even after receiving funds from large retail companies like Gap and Lands End, Just Garments, a unionsed manufacturing plant recently closed due to poor management and poor working conditions. The plants was in the process of filling orders for pants, T-Shirts and other clothing when is ran out of money and shut down leaving employees without jobs after many had not been paid for weeks.

There were many factors that contributed to the closing including lack of government faith in plants with unions, poor management, high rent and overhead costs, and missed deadlines. For its first contracted job, Just Garments, which opened in 2004, produced cargo pants for Gap. When the plant could not produce pants with the level of quality Gap expected, the company withdrew its contract and paid Just Garments US $124,000 to help the company hire competent management and pay a higher wage in order to bring in skilled workers. But the plant was already falling behind in rent and paying current employees on time, so the money was quickly spent.

Just Garments turned to producing T-Shirts, but was not equipped to handle large orders. The union took over management duties, which proved to be disastrous. "Unions should run unions, and managers should run factories. The idea that the union could somehow represent the workers and manage the factory simultaneously was a fundamentally flawed model," said Adam Neiman, owner of a line of sportswear and a former customer of Just Garments. He ended up with 20% of his order incorrectly labeled.

Since the plants closing, many who worked for the company have not been able to find work. Other manufacturing plants do not want to hire workers who have worked a unionsed environment.

(c)Amir Rochman, www.sxc.hu