Pineapple Pinnacles

Macy’s, Gap, Banana Republic, Express, Victoria’s Secret, Limited and Coldwater Creek might be guilty of supporting sweatshops as reported in this piece of news.

Apparently, a garment contractor operating out of Long Island City, in the borough of Queens, called Jin Shun Inc, formerly Venture 47, has been underpaying their workers by nearly $5.5 million in minimum and overtime wages prior and since 2005.

Urban Apparel (gasp!) that has already paid $60,000 in underpayments to have the tags removed (gasp again!) on the items tagged by officials who tagged more than 10,000 garments with a label stating the garments were unlawfully manufactured.

Investigators even found a question-and-answer sheet meant to coach workers on how to respond to labor investigators without raising suspicions.

Gosh. These companies should do frequent checks on their manufacturers to ensure such events never occur – or they might very well know about it already.

That’s a shame. Especially Urban Apparel – who removed the tags. The least you could do is to keep the tags on and inform your consumers, or simply donate them to a charity organisation.

*Updated*

Apparently, Macy’s is off the hook with the story here.