A HISTORICAL LOOK AT THE AMERICAN GARMENT INDUSTRY AND ITS IMPACT ON LABOR MOVEMENTS IN THE U.S.
Check out Rebecca Ballard’s interview with Sally Greenberg, CEO of the National Consumers League, as a part of the We Can Do This! podcast as well as Rebecca’s Guest Blog: The FABRIC act will address garment industry workplace concerns.
By the NATIONAL CONSUMERS LEAGUE
In our latest installment of We Can Do This! Sally Greenberg, CEO of National Consumers League, sits down with Rebecca Ballard to discuss the fashion and garment industry.
Sally and Rebecca, an experienced and leading authority on sustainable fashion and founder of the consulting firm Ballard Advisory, discuss the incredible linkage connecting the garment industry’s history with the work of NCL specifically with respect to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in the early 1900s, women’s and workers’ rights movements in the U.S., and child labor exploitation.
“Following the lead of women’s suffrage groups, and often in concert with women’s rights leaders, a number of trade unions formed to support the rights of garment workers. Roosevelt’s New Deal offered legal protection to unions, and through union gains and New Deal programs sweatshop conditions lessened and wages increased. However this brief period of reforms for workers in the US garment industry did not continue when the industry expanded and much of the industry moved abroad.”
Rebecca, a former Labor and Employment Attorney with the U.S. Department of Commerce and owner of the sustainable fashion line Maven Women, recently penned a guest blog for NCL titled “The FABRIC Act will address garment industry workplace concerns.”
Featured In
The National Consumers League | December 2023
