The Garment Worker Center (GWC)
is a worker rights organization whose mission is to organize low-wage garment workers in Los Angeles in the fight for social and economic justice.
OUR VISION
Our vision is that Los Angeles garment workers transform the fashion industry to eliminate sweatshop labor. Workers lead the fight for safe and dignified workplace with fair wages. We build power from the bottom up for social and economic justice.
OUR MISSION
Through direct organizing we help develop leaders who demand enforcement of strong labor laws and accountability from factory owners, manufacturers, and fashion brands. GWC centers immigrant workers, women of color, and their families.
GET INFORMED
Los Angeles is the nation’s garment production capital and the city’s largest manufacturing sector. Over 45,000 workers cut, sew and finish garments locally, a workforce comprised primarily of Latino/a and Asian immigrants. The Los Angeles garment industry is notorious for operating within a complex, multi-layered system of fierce competition, in which thousands of small factories compete to obtain contracts with manufacturers by providing high volume and quick turnaround. To do so, contract owners “sweat” work out of their employees while garment manufacturers and retailers reap tremendous profits and routinely deny responsibility for the conditions in which their garments were produced.