Wednesday,
February 20, 2008
"Made in
The
ANNOTICO Report
When
an Italian Fashion house charges $1,470 for a purse, is it too much to
expect them to pay Italian workers a decent wage, when there is a high
unemployment rate? How greedy can a company be, to not only allow
illegal immigrants to do the work Italians should do, but permit the
illegal immigrants to be over worked, underpayed,
living in squalor, with no benefits, nothing more than sweatshops with
deplorable conditions and virtually indentured workers.
The
fashion houses argue, it
Shame
on the Schmata Industry!!! [Yiddish for Clothing
Industry]
The
It
By Tracy Wilkinson, Staff Writer
February 20, 2008
PRATO,
ITALY -- The "Made in Italy" label conjures images of little old men
and women in aprons and spectacles, stooped over wooden tables, cutting leather
and sewing by hand in workshops that dot the hills of Tuscany.
It certainly doesn
These days, the coveted "Made in
Thousands of Tuscan factories that produce the region
Chinese laborers have become such an integral cog in the high-fashion wheel
that large Chinatowns have sprung up here and in
In P rato,
For the big-name clothing labels, Chinese-staffed workshops provide an
important way of keeping costs down by supplying cheaply and quickly made
purses, shoes and other products. It helps the fashion houses compete and,
many argue, it
But for legions of Italian craftsmen and -women who try to maintain
painstaking but costly old-style practices, the cheaper Chinese labor is
deadly.
"It
In a way, this is repr esentative
of the dilemma facing
Three categories of problematic production plague the Italian fashion industry.
First there are the out-and-out counterfeits, part of
a multibillion-dollar fraud denounced the world over. Consumers have long been
aware of the fakes and knockoffs, made God-knows-where, that are hawked on
street corners or out of the trunks of cars. Italian financial police last year
conducted 250 raids on workshops in
Then there is the gray area of shoes and bags assembled at least partially in
Finally, there are the products made completely in
Italian law governs safety in the workplace, the number of hours that can be
worked and the minimum wage, among other rules, but the law is often flouted.
And so, it is possible that a fancy store may have expensive designer bags made
by Chinese workers in Italy displayed next to the same bags made, also in
Italy, by Italian workers, Calistri says. One cost 20
euros (about $30) to produce, the other 250 euros (about $365). The price tag
is the same, often many hundreds of dollars.
That
"
Calistri has formed a consortium composed of 65
companies, all small like his. They call themselves 100 Percent Italian.
In his workshop during a recent visit, women (and they are mostly women) in
crisp white lab coats were attaching gilded bows to pink satin clutches for
Roberto Cavalli, while a computer-guided laser sliced
thin sheets of soft leather for designs by Bulgari or
Donna Karan. Under bright fluorescent lighting, other
women hand-stitched the suede inner pockets of another batch of designer bags.
The next step to distinguish their work, Calistri
says, is to implant microchips in handbags; with the chip, a consumer can check
authenticity on his or her cellphone.
The top fashi on labels remain largely aloof from
this seedy side of the business. They say abuse is a marginal practice.
However, in making use of a chain of suppliers and subcontractors, they can
turn a blind eye, and do so, in the opinion of Calistri
and other craftsmen like him.
An enormous portion of subcontractors today are Chinese, according to the
Italian financial police, who monitor their activities. From fewer than 100
in
Police have shut down many after raids exposed poor living conditions, lack of
residence permits for foreign nationals and the failure to pay taxes. In one
raid last year, police discovered a clandestine factory when neighbors reported
unexplained comings and goings of Chinese.
In the factory, police found living quarters complete with small cell s for
sleeping and a shrine for prayer. No one spoke much Italian, except for one
Chinese woman who seemed to be in charge. In broken Italian, she said she
couldn
The Chinese workers "self-exploit," said Ye Huiming,
a 28-year-old immigrant who serves as informal liaison between the Chinese
community and city officials in
"They spend a lot of money to come here and then they have to pay off their
debts," Ye said. "They
"They don
The movement of Chinese into the Italian garment industry has transformed this
part of a country that only relatively recently has had to face the changes
brought by large-scale immigration. Tuscany now has the largest percentage
of Chinese res idents anywhere in Italy.
Chinese who have immigrated legally are settled and have moved up in the world,
Ye said. There is the beginning of a second
generation, Chinese who speak Italian well (even with a Tuscan accent) and
follow the rules. One-third of all Chinese here are under 21.
Ye came to
Still, he said, the climate is souring because of prejudice and misconceptions,
especially when Chinese are blamed for undermining the Italian economy by
dumping cheap products into the market.
Driving through Chinese neighborhoods and sprawling industrial parks in
The Chinese in
It exposed the exploitation of Chinese through the use of subcontractors and
the questionable practices behind the "Made in
The documentary reported that Prada had ended its
dealings with one sweatshop when the company was made aware of its work. Asked
by The Times for comment, a Prada spokesman issued a
statement that said the company "controls directly each phase of the
production process" at 14 factories it owns in
The [Prada] spokesman declined to answer
questions, saying the people at Prada were too busy. It
wilkinson@latimes.com
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