Exactly one week ago, Alexander Wang was accused of running a sweatshop in Chinatown. I found out about this right after giving a talk on this very issue: cheap labor. What a coincidence! If this wasn’t enough, I was giving this workshop in the area where the alleged workshop is located. According to the Post, Alexander Wang and his brother, Denis, forced upwards of thirty employees to work 16-hour days in a suffocating, windowless, 200-square-foot room. When we think of sweatshops we usually think about China or underdeveloped countries not America. Well like I told the attendees of my “Made In?” workshop, the truth of the matter is that designers face extreme challenges. They are trying to provide quality products at a price consumers will respond to and please shareholders who most often than not are motivated by profits. I hope that this story sheds light on the plight of workers worldwide and leads to better working conditions for all. Read the below report from Racked and let us know your thoughts.
“According to both the New York Daily News and the New York Post, a Queens man has accused Alexander Wang ofoperating a sweatshop in a new $50 million lawsuit. The suit comes from Wenyu Lu, a 56-year-old former Wang employee who says he passed out after working 25 hours without a break.
The tabloids’ accounts diverge slightly, though. The Daily News quotes Lu’s lawyer as saying that he’s hoping to sign up other workers for a class-action lawsuit. But the Post reports that thirty workers have accused Wang and his brother, Dennis, of forcing them to work 16-hour days “in a suffocating, windowless, 200-square-foot room” at 386 Broadway just south of Walker Street.
Lu says he was ultimately hospitalized for several days after he passed out. When he complained about the sweatshop’s conditions and applied for worker’s comp, says his lawyer, he was fired. The Wang camp had no comment for either paper, though they did tell the Post that they had not yet been served with any lawsuit.”