Introduction
The book title is “Behind the Label: Inequality in the Los Angeles Apparel Industry.” The authors are Bonacich, E., and Appelbaum. Publication information: University of California Press, 2000, 414 pages. The book is an elaboration of the Los Angeles clothing trade showing the levels of inequalities prevailing in the business. It has ten chapters divided into three parts, with the first part encapsulating manufacturers, offshore production, retailers, and the power elite. The second part details labor in terms of contractors, workers, and the distribution of wealth. The last part entails fighting back stipulating the government enforcement and retention efforts, worker empowerment, and the Anti sweatshop movement.
The authors review the business of sweatshops in the United States. In this regard, Bonacich and Appelbaum (2000) define the importance of the spread of capitalism with respect to globalization and trade flow shifts showing that it is the influx-efflux mechanics that have culminated in the increase and diversification of sweatshops in the US and globally. As opposed to the worldview of people relating to the Asian and Latin Americans’ fashion industries, the book unearths the copious sweatshop destinations situated along the US border with Mexico. The book is available online, and it can be accessed by students and/or other people interested in reading it.
Literature Review of Similar Cases
Many scholars and organizations trying to avert the socioeconomic vice have put the American economy and American inequality in the spotlight. According to Gordon (2014), the dimension of inequality in America is stipulated with respect to the explanatory factors. The first case entails a political explanation detailing the root of inequality in America, with labor relations being placed at the forefront. Issues relating to minimum wage, social policy, and job-based benefits have been elucidated by Gordon (2014), who also showed the connection between inequality and financialization and macroeconomic policies in the American economy.
Gordon asserts that wage inequality stems from the policies designed to outline the American labor market. On March 15, 2014, residents in Seattle flocked the streets in order to fight for the minimum wage policy, which basically constitutes the foundational policy considering that other frameworks supporting the bargaining power of workers for wage upgrades have been trampled by time and policies that outweigh them. The fight for standardized American labor standards continues with people setting up a favorable economic and ethical platform whose coverage is even and stable. This case is very similar to that of Nike workers who were being physically abused by their supervisors (Daily Mail, 2011)
The second case entails the foundations for income inequality in the American economy, as stipulated in a report by Manzo and Bruno (2014) in their report trying to answer the question, “Which labor market institutions reduce income inequality?” This case dwells on the institutions that directly elicit dragging effects to the trials put forward to avert inequality. For instance, the authors show that the presence of structural changes influencing the American economy directly induces inequality. The same is postulated on the effects of changes affecting the remuneration of chief executive officers of organizations and industries, and the direct changes affecting the American labor markets. This is particularly true in the construction industry, with an ordinary American earning less than a dollar an hour.
In a nutshell, the authors uncover the injustice and inequality sandaled by the industry considering the labor exerted by workers to ensure the spread of sweatshops behind a particular brand label. The book provides a platform of arguments to curb inequality practiced by brand name companies paying junior employees penance while retaining huge company profits.
The book is really a definitive work on the apparel industry, considering the in-depth insights put forward in the text explicating to the public the fashion industry, among other industries, work. The book shows how the authors have carried out elaborate research regarding the Los Angeles clothing industry and placed their observations, opinions, conclusion, and commendations of the mechanics of mitigating wage inequality in the industry for industry workers globally. Intuitions regarding the definitions of a manufacturer, a worker, a subcontractor, or a contractor in any industry or the premise of manufacturers working in an integrated process leading to finished products, as was the case in the garment industry stipulated in the book are apparent.
The legal framework for the fight for the right of workers in the sweatshop industry has been formulated, but their usage within the foreign context provides for prohibitions and exceptions that dwindle judicial enforcement. As shown in the book, the functionality of labor organizations has been shown to be sidelined with the needs of the power and necessity of economic situations. The book reveals the cost of labor, showing the meagerness of the total labor cost as only about 12% of the cost of the finished garment product on wholesale terms. These costs, including labor costs, are shown to be compensated by the opportunity costs of investing in the industry in Mexico. In actuality, if operations in the Los Angeles garment industry areas depicted in the book, then as scholars of urban planning and economics purport, excesses of production ought to overshadow labor.
Relevance to the Main Case
Considering the case regarding the sweatshop industry, workers earn a meager salary in comparison with the profits garnered by the company. In many industries globally, the same is extrapolated with more remuneration oppression in the developing countries where workers earn less than two dollars for a day of hard work. As stipulated by Bonacich and Appelbaum (2000), poor wages are not only in American industries but a global scourge. The same is purported by Gordon (2014), who shows that policies developed to fight for better wages and equality in compensation are only sidestepped and sidelined to suit the pockets of a few people in power.
In his writing, statistics show the wide gap between the rich and the poor in terms of remuneration. Similarly, Manzo and Bruno (2014) provide clear indications of the ever-widening gap in all industries, especially in the construction sector. Daily Mail (2011) asserts that workers are suffering because their employers cannot consider their labor issues, which could enable them to live better lives. The majorities of workers suffer the toil and do not reap an equitable pay for their hard labor. The functionality of the legal framework set by institutions fighting for income equality is only put on record, but their implementation still lags.
Conclusion
It is evident that workers in Los Angeles garment industries are oppressed in terms of being subjected to hard labor but meager pay. A similar scenario is seen in the construction industry, where general workers earn less than a dollar an hour. Laws protecting the labor market and institutions thereof do not provide protection to the workers they were meant. Restructuring of the American economy with respect to better labor laws that ensure efficiency and equity in remuneration of workers requires reforms and timely implementation in order to curb the identified labor income inequalities.
References
Bonacich, E., & Appelbaum, R. (2000). Behind the label: Inequality in the Los Angeles Apparel Industry. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Web.
Daily Mail. (2011). Nike workers ‘kicked, slapped and verbally abused’ at factories making Converse. Web.
Gordon, C. (2014). The Bare Minimum: Labor Standards and American Inequality – A Quarterly of Politics and Culture. Web.
Manzo, F., & Bruno, R. (2014). Which Labor Market Institutions Reduce Income Inequality? Web.