Tag Archives: El Monte
- 25-10-2001
From Virtual Slavery to Being Boss Entrepreneurs
Couple once indentured in a garment sweatshop now run their own successful restaurant October 25, 2001|KAREN ROBINSON-JACOBS | TIMES STAFF WRITER Desperate to end four years of virtual slavery at a now-infamous garment factory in El Monte, Win Chuai Ngan climbed the perimeter wall, jumped down and hurried off into the darkness, uncertain where the Continue Reading
- 24-10-1997
Sweatshop Workers to Get $2 Million
Labor: Five firms settle with 150 Thai and Latino employees of notorious El Monte apparel facility and its sister plant in L.A. October 24, 1997|GEORGE WHITE and PATRICK McDONNELL | TIMES STAFF WRITERS Five major companies, including Mervyn’s and Montgomery Ward, have agreed to pay more than $2 million to 150 workers who labored under Continue Reading
- 11-9-1997
Plan for Sweatshop Exhibition Draws Fire
Museums: Apparel industry says Smithsonian re-creation of El Monte facility would be unfair. September 11, 1997|GEORGE WHITE | STAFF WRITER In an echo of the politically charged uproar that killed the Smithsonian Institution’s planned 1995 exhibit on the dropping of the atom bomb, several apparel and retailing industry groups are protesting a new plan by Continue Reading
- 19-6-1996
Not Home Free
Thais Freed From Sweatshop Are Adjusting to Life in U.S., but the Future Is Uncertain June 19, 1996|KENNETH CHANG | TIMES STAFF WRITER At their regular Thursday night meeting, 20 Thai workers who spent nearly three years confined in an El Monte sweatshop gather for English lessons. The lesson of the night: how to order Continue Reading
- 5-9-1995
Freed Thais Offer Thanks During Labor Day Rally
Workers: Sweatshop was ‘like coming to hell,’ one says. Union, state officials urge tougher enforcement of laws in garment industry. September 05, 1995|JEFF LEEDS | TIMES STAFF WRITER With union placards in their hands and a still-unfamiliar sun overhead, 55 of the Thai garment workers liberated from an El Monte sweatshop last month offered tearful Continue Reading
- 25-8-1995
Reaction to Plight of Sweatshop Workers Opens a Rift in L.A.’s Thai Community
August 25, 1995|KARL SCHOENBERGER | TIMES STAFF WRITER Reverberations from the notorious sweatshop in El Monte have thrust the local Thai community into a crisis of civic identity, dividing people in sometimes bitter discord that challenges traditional Asian values of harmony and accommodation. Community sources say families and friends are split over whom to sympathize Continue Reading
- 23-8-1995
Sweatshop Workers’ Plight Splits Thai Community
Culture: Some are split over whom to sympathize with: the exploited employees or the family-operated business. August 23, 1995|KARL SCHOENBERGER | TIMES STAFF WRITER They don’t stand out conspicuously like other Asian immigrant groups in Los Angeles: only scattered signs over clusters of restaurants in places such as Hollywood hint at a considerable Thai population–supposedly Continue Reading
- 23-8-1995
Speaking Up for the Silent
HEARTS OF THE CITY: Exploring attitudes and issues behind the news. Thai American activist is using El Monte sweatshop scandal to publicize the problems many of her countrymen face in U.S. August 23, 1995|PETER HONG | TIMES STAFF WRITER The discovery this month of an El Monte sweatshop in which Thai workers were allegedly held Continue Reading
- 13-8-1995
Thai Sweatshop Workers Savor Freedom’s Joys
Labor: The 72 reportedly held as virtual slaves in factory ‘went from hell to heaven,’ one community leader says. Two suspects are still fugitives. August 13, 1995|PATRICK J. McDONNELL | TIMES STAFF WRITER As federal investigators intensified their manhunt for two suspected principals of an El Monte sweatshop, the 72 workers who authorities say were Continue Reading
- 11-8-1995
Thai Workers May Be Released Soon
Sweatshop: Labor and community groups pledge bond for 40 of the immigrants. They have agreed to serve as witnesses against the business’ operators August 11, 1995|PAUL FELDMAN and PATRICK J. McDONNELL | TIMES STAFF WRITERS Many of the 72 undocumented Thai immigrants who worked for years in alleged slave-like conditions at an El Monte sweatshop Continue Reading