Reinforcing the Seams: Guaranteeing the Promise of California’s Landmark Anti-Sweatshop Law - An Evaluation of Assembly Bill 633 Six Years Later

Today, AB 633 stands as a landmark law with great potential — much of it yet to be realized — to fight against the proliferation of sweatshops and corporate abuse in the garment industry, and to serve as model legislation for other low-wage industries across California and around the nation in which workers are denied their most basic workplace rights. In documenting the successes of AB 633, as well as presenting the challenges garment workers still face in recovering their wages under the law, this report seeks to provide an answer to the pivotal question: Has AB 633 fulfilled its promise? To answer this question, we analyzed a statistically random sample of over 200 AB 633 claims docketed by the state labor agency between March 31, 2001 and February 18, 2004. Our Key Findings illustrate that AB 633 is a powerful tool that has been ineffectively utilized by DLSE and hence ignored by many companies that continue to profit from sweatshop labor. This report concludes with a series of recommendations which the authors hope to pursue with key stakeholders as part of our collective responsibility to realize the promise of AB 633 —and to make sweatshops in garment and other low-wage industries a part of our past, not our future

Reinforcing the Seams: Guaranteeing the Promise of California’s Landmark Anti-Sweatshop Law - An Evaluation of Assembly Bill 633 Six Years Later

Today, AB 633 stands as a landmark law with great potential — much of it yet to be realized — to fight against the proliferation of sweatshops and corporate abuse in the garment industry, and to serve as model legislation for other low-wage industries across California and around the nation in which workers are denied their most basic workplace rights. In documenting the successes of AB 633, as well as presenting the challenges garment workers still face in recovering their wages under the law, this report seeks to provide an answer to the pivotal question: Has AB 633 fulfilled its promise? To answer this question, we analyzed a statistically random sample of over 200 AB 633 claims docketed by the state labor agency between March 31, 2001 and February 18, 2004. Our Key Findings illustrate that AB 633 is a powerful tool that has been ineffectively utilized by DLSE and hence ignored by many companies that continue to profit from sweatshop labor. This report concludes with a series of recommendations which the authors hope to pursue with key stakeholders as part of our collective responsibility to realize the promise of AB 633 —and to make sweatshops in garment and other low-wage industries a part of our past, not our future

A HIGHER HURDLE: Barriers to Employment for Formerly Incarcerated Women

This report finds that a criminal record tends to serve as a barrier to employment for women. These realities can potentially impact their ability to successfully reenter their home communities, reunite with and care for their children, and act as viable participants in society. A criminal record adds an additional hurdle to employment for women and increases their vulnerability to discrimination. Research from this study may impact legislation and policies addressing education and professional training, processes to seal and expunge records, employment disparities, employer discrimination, and increased use of unnecessary or inappropriate background screening techniques

Chinese Soup, Good Horses, and Other Narratives: Practicing Cross-Cultural Competence before We Preach

Before we undertake teaching our students about cross-cultural competence, we need to examine carefully our own practices, and those of our colleagues and institutions, to ensure that we are not complicit in the very practices of cross-cultural “incompetence” that we hope to train our students to avoid. While there is a substantial body of scholarship on teaching this competence to our students, there is less written about practicing it ourselves as teachers and members of academic institutions. This essay will examine the latter subject and will hopefully provide some productive suggestions on ways to expand cross-cultural competence for our law schools and ourselves

Chinese Soup, Good Horses, and Other Narratives: Practicing Cross-Cultural Competence before We Preach

Before we undertake teaching our students about cross-cultural competence, we need to examine carefully our own practices, and those of our colleagues and institutions, to ensure that we are not complicit in the very practices of cross-cultural “incompetence” that we hope to train our students to avoid. While there is a substantial body of scholarship on teaching this competence to our students, there is less written about practicing it ourselves as teachers and members of academic institutions. This essay will examine the latter subject and will hopefully provide some productive suggestions on ways to expand cross-cultural competence for our law schools and ourselves

Complex Employment Issues in Elder Care

While lawyers often associate estate planning with aging parents, there are, in fact, a host of employment law issues related to elder care that can leave one\u27s head spinning. This article addresses obligations that arise under California law when you or your family members hire caregivers. When hiring a caregiver — either at home or when additional individual care is needed in a facility such as assisted living — you must comply with a complex patchwork of laws and regulations governing wages and working conditions

Case Study 2: Advising Governance Structures

This case study is part of the Movement Lawyering Roundtable Symposium. This symposium presents case studies of the often difficult ethical and tactical issues confronted by lawyers for social justice movements. These case studies were developed by the pairing of movement lawyers with legal ethicists and enriched by the discussions at the Movement Lawyering Ethics Roundtable. They seek to provide guidance to lawyers facing these recurrent issues. This issue also includes an essay entitled rebuilding the Ethical Compass of the Law and reading guides with selected bibliographies

Know Your Rights: A Guide to Employment Law for California Workers

The Women\u27s Employment Rights Clinic of Golden Gate University School of Law has written this handbook to help guide California employees who have legal questions regarding their employment. The chapters include broad overviews of different areas of the law. The law changes frequently, and this book contains only basic information. Employees should use this handbook as a starting place for further action and advice; it is not meant to be a substitute for legal counsel

Vulnerable Populations and Transformative Law Teaching: A Critical Reader

Author of chapter: Chinese Soup, Good Horses, and Other Narratives: Practicing Cross-Cultural Competence Before We Preach. The essays included in this volume began as presentations at the March 19–20, 2010 “Vulnerable Populations and Economic Realities” teaching conference organized and hosted by Golden Gate University School of Law and co-sponsored by the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT). That conference, generously funded by a grant from The Elfenworks Foundation, brought together law faculty, practitioners, and students to reexamine how issues of race, gender, sexual identity, nationality, disability, and generally—outsider status—are linked to poverty. Contributors have transformed their presentations into essays, offering a variety of roadmaps for incorporating these issues into the law school curriculum, both inside the classroom as well as in clinical and externship settings, study abroad, and social activism. These essays provide glimpses into “teaching moments,” both intentional and organic, to help trigger opportunities for students and faculty to question their own perceptions and experiences about who creates and interprets law, and who has access to power and the force of law. This book expands the parameters of law teaching so that this next generation of attorneys will be dedicated to their roles as public citizens, broadening the availability of justice.https://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/book_chapters/1007/thumbnail.jp