The Difference between Heaven and Earth

INTRODUCING ALTA GRACIA

April 16, 2010, was a day that few people at Alta Gracia will forget. Stuffed into an office no more than 10 feet by 10 feet were the factory's two accountants along with representatives of the union and a workers' rights monitoring group. At peak midday heat, everyone in the small room was sweating. On any flat surface not occupied by printers or computers were small manila envelopes, each with the equivalent of about US$125 in cash and a handwritten pay stub stapled to the front. The pay stubs were written on old-school transfer paper, so both the factory and the worker had a copy. It was a bit like a time warp to factories before the age of computers.

Outside the cramped office was the spacious factory floor that housed the rag-tag initial production lines of Alta Gracia. At the time, the workforce consisted of a couple dozen workers organized into two production modules. Each module was set up in an L-shaped line of twelve sewing machines with a worker at each one, each adding on their part of the t-shirt: the sleeve, the collar, hem or tags, before passing the shirt-in-progress to the next person. During each week of the training period, production sped up slightly more, getting the operators trained for full-speed output. After several rounds of samples and practice garments had been donated to local charities, this week was the first time finished t-shirts were destined for the U.S. market.

The production lines that made the first batch of Alta Gracia t-shirts took up no more than a quarter of the factory floor. The rest of the industrial shell lay empty. But there were hints at future expansion in the year to come: new machines to be refurbished and assembled into more production modules, and rolls of fabric for the new orders everyone prayed would come.

That Friday at 1PM sharp, a tinny bell rang, the marker for the end of the workweek. In past weeks, it had taken at least 20 minutes for the factory to clear out, as workers compared notes for the weekend's errands and dusted lint from the production line off their clothes. They'd then saunter into the bright sunlight of the industrial park where a pack of motorcycle taxis was revved up and waiting for them. Not today. Today, workers shot up from their seats and made a beeline for the office. Every soul in the building had been counting the hours and minutes until one o'clock.

Santo Bartolo Valdez Nuñez was one of the first to the door. He was tall and skinny. Like many Alta Gracia workers, he had sustained a long period of skipped meals before starting work at the factory. A faded jean jacket hung off of his lanky limbs and a frayed baseball hat sat on his head. He had dark circles under his eyes but a huge grin across his face. Like a kid on Christmas morning, he confessed that he hadn't slept much the night before because of the excitement. This kind of earnest excitement was not typical of the normally deadpan Santo. While some other Alta Gracia workers had gushed about their big hopes of paying off their crushing debt and starting clean, and others told each detail of the dream house they would start saving for, in the weeks leading up to now, Santo always brushed it off. Pointing to his sneakers, aged and cracking with the rubber worn thin, Santo said his first purchase would be new sneakers — golden ones. But today, not even Santo could hide his excitement. He had never received a paycheck this large.

And Santo was not alone. Workers waited in line for their pay with jubilation. Each worker leaving the office would sashay and pose with their paycheck as others snapped pictures, like celebrities on the red carpet. Workers embraced, slung their arms around each other, and shared with uncontained excitement what they would do next. Elba Nuris Olivo Pichardo, a sweet but no-nonsense mother of two, nearly jumped out of her own skin with joy, saying half of her paycheck was going straight to the bank to save up for house renovations. But not all joys were far off in the future. Her daughters, since they learned about her new job, had been asking her, "Mom, does this mean we can go out for pizza?" The pleasure of being able to provide this treat for her kids brought her as much joy as did the prospect of future renovations.

How could such unbridled joy be caused by a US$125 payday? To understand, it helps to see Alta Gracia in its larger context, the apparel industry as a whole.

THE HUMAN COST OF BUSINESS AS USUAL

Apparel factories were dubbed sweatshops as far back as the industrial revolution — when profits were said to be "squeezed from the sweat" of poorly paid workers laboring under horrendous conditions. No consensus definition exists at the international level, but a number of common characteristics mark sweatshops. Typically, workers are subject to harsh and arbitrary discipline while denied rights to issue complaints or organize a union. Sweatshops pay workers subpoverty wages for excessively long hours manufacturing products under hazardous conditions — so hazardous that many people have lost their lives as a result. For instance, in 1911, 146 women workers died trapped in New York City's Triangle Shirtwaist factory, all for a lack of fire exits. When an uncontrolled fire broke out, many workers jumped to their deaths rather than be consumed by the flames.

Public outcry and worker organizing after that seminal workplace disaster led to safer factories, shorter hours, and better wages across the industry. Sweatshop conditions were nearly abolished in the New York apparel industry for several decades of the 20th century. However, in the late 20th century, apparel brands undermined this progress by shifting their production to factories with lower wages and looser labor law compliance. The globalization of the industry and fierce pressure to lower production prices, despite the human cost, led to a resurgence of sweatshop conditions.

In 2012, over 110 workers perished and 300 more were injured in disturbingly similar circumstances at the Tazreen apparel factory on the edge of Dhaka, Bangladesh — a factory that counted Walmart, Disney, and Sears among its clients. Workers trapped on higher floors of the seven-story factory perished because the building, like virtually all garment factories in Bangladesh, had no fire exits. Preventing this tragedy would have meant nothing more than properly protecting the stairwells and exits with fire doors, as required by every building code in the world. Yet the apparel industry fails to ensure even this basic protection for millions of Bangladeshi garment workers. More than 100 years after the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, inhumane conditions continue in the apparel industry. Even today, most clothing in the global economy is made under working conditions strikingly similar to early 20th...