The Fabric Act: A New Wave Of Fashion Policy Reform And Regulation
How the fashion garment worker policy will affect not only the fashion industry, but every labor industry.
by Victoria Maung
Fashion is an industry that affects everyone. Many people don’t think that they don’t have an effect on fashion, with many people believing that they are not able to have an impact or are able to voice their opinion on fashion, but that is not true. Fashion is not merely the spectacle of runway and haute couture as editorial magazines and high fashion brands stereotypically portray and market fashion to be, but it is an everyday experience everyone participates in and is affected by. We all wear clothes on a day to day basis so we are all a part of the fashion ecosystem, a system that touches the cornerstones of culture, climate, politics, etc. At its core, it is a human experience and it is a human rights issue.
What is the FABRIC Act?
The FABRIC Act, shorthand for Fashioning Accountability and Building Real Institutional Change Act, would protect over 100,000 garment workers in America while also improving working conditions, reforming the piece-rate pay scale, and increasing domestic apparel production. It was introduced by New York Senator Kristen Gillibrand to the Senate on May 12, 2022. The bill has gained endorsement from other lawmakers such as Senators Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders, and Alex Padilla. Still, it is currently awaiting a potential vote in the Senate Finance Committee.
Why is it important?
If passed, the bill would encourage domestic garment production and enact regulations for responsible apparel production within US clothing factories. It will also implement a nationwide garment industry registry through the Department of Labor that will promote transparency while also setting new requirements that will hold fashion brands, retailers, and manufacturers accountable towards regulating workplace violations and incentivizing responsible production.
Domestic garment production would strengthen the national economy, and most importantly, it would mean that less clothing would be imported from other countries, thereby lessening carbon emissions. The fashion industry is responsible for emitting 8-10% of the world’s global greenhouse gas emissions, which is, for comparison, the same amount of emissions as the economies of France, Germany, and England combined. Greenhouse gas emissions are created from fossil fuels with carbon dioxide making up the majority of its composition, which is why experts are concerned about its “carbon footprint” (the total amount of carbon emitted by our consumption habits). It also accounts for 20% of global waste water and discards 85% of its textiles, which end up in landfills or are burned. Delivery transportation by air transportation contributes 2.4% of global carbon emissions alone. Producing garments within the country will, by no means, eradicate the carbon footprint the fashion industry leaves behind, but will lessen its current output by lessening the distance clothing travels.
Responsible apparel production begins with advocating for garment workers’ rights by ending the wage theft the piece-rate pay system perpetuates and paying garment workers hourly. About 85% of garment workers currently do not earn minimum wage and are instead compensated with the piece-rate pay system, which allows employers to pay garment workers about 2-6 cents for each piece of clothing they assemble. In 2021, The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that within the approximate 440,000 people employed in the Textiles, Apparel, and Leather Manufacturing industries, 51.4% were women, and 43.6% were people of color. Most garment workers are Latino/a and Chinese immigrant women, two of the most vulnerable minority groups. Implementing policy is a step towards giving garment workers, especially those who are marginalized women of color, access to fundamental human rights.
What are other related fashion policies?
The FABRIC Act builds off of many previous policies implemented throughout the last century for garment workers’ rights. What separates the FABRIC Act from other historical policies is that it is the first congressional bill in history that is explicitly aimed at addressing the fashion, garment, and clothing industries. Other laws and policies have only happened to include the fashion industry under general umbrella coverage aimed more toward businesses at large.
The FABRIC Act would amend and build upon policy such as the Fair Labor Standards Act (1938), which originally implemented a 40-cent-an-hour minimum wage, a 40-hour maximum workweek, overtime pay, and a minimum working age of 16 in most industries. It would also build upon the Assembly Bill 633 (1999), a worker protection law passed in California aimed at preventing wage theft in California’s sweatshop garment industry. This was a major policy reform and remains an impactful policy, because California today is still the state with the most garment workers and factories.
Retailers and manufacturers have been circumventing previous worker regulations for decades because there was no public awareness about the labor inequalities and human rights violations practiced in garment factories. In addition, although the Fair Labor Standards Act and Assembly Bill 633 provided foundational protections for workers, the working culture today is also vastly different from 20th-century American society. Rapid societal structural shifts such as increased consumption brought about by the Industrial Revolution and the Internet age have changed labor standards and definitions. With that, new protections are needed.
But there have been breakthroughs within the last few years about, especially with climate change on the forefront of both society’s and, subsequently, lawmakers’ minds. Specifically, the Uyghur Forced Labor Protection (2021) bill outlaws the import of garments made in this region of China due to slave labor. Since 2017, China has interned as many as 1.8 million Uyghur and many other Muslim minority groups in labor camps, forced labor, and other human rights violations. By outlawing the importation of slave labor made goods, the United States has set a precedent. By enacting the FABRIC Act, it would send a similar message by prioritizing the regulation of America’s garment worker conditions.
Another important legislation passed within the same year is the California Garment Worker Protection Act (2021), which mandates fair wages within the state of California, the first state to do so. It will not only protect workers’ rights by mandating wage regulation, but it will also keep brands and manufacturers accountable by penalizing them if they still enact wage theft and other illegal pay practices. The SB62 coalition consisted of a group of garment workers who lobbied for the bill’s passing in 2020. This legislation is an especially integral policy when thinking about the FABRIC Act because if the FABRIC Act was passed, it would apply this coverage to garment workers at a federal level.
What doesn’t it cover?
Although the FABRIC Act will bring about numerous positive changes and impact the industry in unprecedented ways, it still contains gaps in its policy protections. For instance, the bill does not propose amendments to the Bureau of Prisons’ Federal Prison Industries program, the program which pays prisoners 90 cents an hour to produce various products, including clothing. The prison industry generates $500 million in annual sales, and lawmakers have faced difficulty regulating the exploitation it perpetuates because federal prisons are shielded from coverage of domestic labor laws. However, since the bill is still currently under review, potential to fill in the gaps of the policy coverage.
How does the FABRIC Act align with Custom Collaborative’s mission?
Custom Collaborative was one of the act’s earliest endorsers that nudged lawmakers to include nonprofits under the coverage of the bill. Other organizations that are supporting the bill include: Slow Factory, Remake, Made in NYC, Pratt Institute, Fair Trade LA, etc. Custom Collaborative, along with many other nonprofits across the United States focused on manufacturing workplace development, would receive benefits from the act. The bill would introduce a $40 million Domestic Garment Manufacturing Support Program to supply grants to manufacturers for equipment costs, safety improvements, and training and workforce development.
Custom Collaborative’s ultimate mission is to empower women, especially immigrant women; 85% of the women in the Training Institute are mothers, 80% live below the federal poverty level, and 50% live in unstable housing. The Training Institute is a part of the greater US garment industry, where workers are mostly immigrants and women. The bill also shares Custom Collaborative’s mission of fostering sustainability within the fashion industry by making garment production more equitable through wage regulation and domestic manufacturing.
What does it mean for future policy in fashion?
If the FABRIC Act is passed, it will be a step towards paving a future for more fashion and garment acts to be passed for the regulation of working conditions within the US. There is still a long way to reform, but passing more legislation like the FABRIC Act will draw the public’s attention to the pressing issues, which will also draw lawmakers’ attention. Bringing more attention to the issues within the fashion industry will ultimately bring more solutions in solving other interconnected societal issues like the climate crisis, socioeconomic inequality, etc. At the end of the day, everyone can impact the fashion industry by advocating for legal protections and policy; legal protections are one of the most effective avenues of enacting tangible change.
Victoria Maung is an undergraduate student at New York University studying decolonial fashion and cultural criticism who hopes to work in the business and legal sides of fashion. She has a deep appreciation for Peter Do, interactive art galleries, and her Resy app. A lover of monochromatic black, she will never be caught dead wearing color. Talk to her about your favorite designer.