Report: Overseas Sweatshops Hurting U.S. Sweatshops
WASHINGTON, DC-- According to a Labor Department report released Monday, foreign sweatshops are seriously diminishing the profitability of domestic sweatshops. "Since January 1999," the report read, "more than 200 U.S. sweatshops have been forced either to close or issue massive layoffs due to unfair competition from Far East sweatshops." Said Bruno Stoops, manager of the Queens, NY, sweatshop Best Fabrics, which employs some 150 illegal Honduran immigrants: "How can I compete with some Hong Kong sweatshop when I'm paying my employees 85 cents an hour and can only force them to work 16-hour days? In Asia, they can produce equally shoddy goods for 13 cents an hour."