Officials Hit Same Sewing Shops Again : Labor abuses: The raids resulted in thousands of dollars in fines and racks of garments being confiscated. One operator said that he had had enough.

SANTA ANA —  State labor and safety officials raided more than 70 sewing shops and wrote more than $63,000 in fines Tuesday in one the largest raids on suspected sweatshops in Orange County.

The sweep was aimed at cracking down on repeat offenders by making surprise inspections of garment factories that have been cited before for wage, hour, child labor or record-keeping violations.

“We want to make sure they know we’re serious and not just think that we issue a citation, they pay, and we forget the whole thing,” said Senior Labor Deputy Phil Galvez.

One Garden Grove entrepreneur squatted dejectedly, watching the labor inspectors scoop up racks of newly sewn garments--593 pieces in all--and haul them away. The man, Charles Chen Do, said the clothing represented three weeks of hard work; labor inspectors said the garments were confiscated because Do was operating without a license and had been fined twice before.

“I’m so tired, I’m quitting,” Do said. “I hate this business.”

Tuesday’s inspections centered on Garden Grove, Westminster, Santa Ana and Huntington Beach, where roughly 400 small sewing shops, mostly owned by immigrants, have sprung up within the last several years. Federal and state labor officials have found a pattern of labor abuses, with some workers being paid as little as $1 an hour.

“As we became aware of the concentration (of sewing shops), we decided that more forceful enforcement would be appropriate in Orange County,” said Roger Miller, Southern California regional manager for the state Division of Labor Standards.

The number of inspections has been steeply increased since last year, Miller said. In a similar sweep last month, for example, labor inspectors visited 93 shops and fined 88 of them a total of $67,850.

Labor officials visited at least 71 shops Tuesday, and some inspectors had not reported in by late afternoon, Miller said. Of those shops, Miller said, 48 had been warned to stop labor violations but were not fined.

Two children were found working in violation of state law, and their employer was fined $1,000, Miller said. Twelve shops were fined a total of $6,100 for failure to carry workers’ compensation insurance, and five were fined $7,600 for paying their workers in cash.

Thirteen shops were cited for not having the state license required of all garment contractors and were fined a total of $15,300, Miller said. Fifteen shops were fined a total of $8,700 for record-keeping violations, which included failure to keep proper time cards.

For the first time, state inspectors also began to enforce a new law that requires sewing shops to post a sign outside their doors stating the nature of their business. The law, which took effect March 1, is aimed at making it easier for labor inspectors to find sewing factories that are often tucked away in warehouses and sometimes operate behind locked doors so as not to attract attention.

All contractors licensed by the state were notified by mail of the new law, Miller said, but 20 businesses were cited Tuesday and fined a total of $24,600 for not posting signs.

“All of these (charges and fines) are preliminary, and they have the right to appeal,” Miller pointed out.

Do indicated that he would do just that. He said he feared that the owner of the garments, Patty Anh Fashions in Los Angeles, would force him to pay market value for the clothes that had been seized. He said he would pay the $600 fine--double the amount of a first offense--and ask that the state release the clothing.

Other store owners cited previously survived Tuesday’s raid unscathed.

Hoa Duc Ngo, owner of Vina Fashion in Huntington Beach, was fined $2,700 last month after labor inspectors found that he had falsified workers’ time cards.

“He punched them out at 3:30 p.m., and they were still working when we showed up at 5,” Maria Kramer, a labor standards investigator, explained.

Ngo, one of a number of Orange County contractors who sew for the Los Angeles junior sportswear label Rampage, insisted that he is now paying the $4.25 minimum wage.

However, while labor inspectors interviewed Ngo in his office, several workers on the shop floor whispered in Spanish that they were, in fact, being paid by the piece--25 cents for sewing a simple blouse and 6 cents for trimming the threads.

One worker said his wages averaged $250 per week, but another said he had earned about $15.75 for eight hours’ work Monday, about half the legal minimum.

“The employees say one thing and he says another thing, but the employees have no proof,” Kramer said. Ngo was not cited.

Miller said inspectors will be making surprise visits in Orange County at least once or twice a month and would likely stage several more large sweeps until they are satisfied that sewing shops here are abiding by the law.