Chinatown's garment factories, already reeling from a string of setbacks, are facing an unexpected challenge: Longtime garment workers are turning down factory work and instead taking paid job-training classes that they hope will lead to better-paying jobs.
This is the garment industry's busy season, with orders coming in for next fall's fashions and temporary jobs opening up. Factories need workers, and now some of those workers -- many of them women in their 40s and older -- say that the industry's future in New York City is dim. They also say that a job training program pays them just as much for a chance to learn English and new skills as they would earn working in a factory sewing days, nights and weekends.
"It's not just if there's a job available now," Li Fang-yu, 44, who has worked in Chinatown's factories for a decade, said of the 13-week job training program she has begun. "I came to America for a better life."
For women like her, it is often their first chance to take English classes and vocational training while also having an income. The Sept. 11 Fund, a relief organization that makes paid training available for about a dozen weeks to about 1,500 workers who lost their jobs or income because of the terrorist attack at the World Trade Center. The fund has six organizations in the city that provide paid training in fields like hotel hospitality, truck driving and home health care. Some of these programs have attracted garment workers.
The fund is unusual in that it pays dislocated workers who qualify a weekly stipend of US$300 for 25 to 35 hours of training a week for three months. The women say the stipend is about what they would earn in factories, usually working longer hours and weekends, and only when there is work to be had.
Their rationale worries the people who run factories in Chinatown and, to a lesser extent, those in Brooklyn and Queens. The garment industry's busy season is roughly between now and May. Some factory owners say they will not be able to fill their orders on time, thereby risking future contracts.
Chinatown's garment factories are already reeling from the export of work to overseas factories, fashion industry problems and the difficulties of manufacturing in New York City. "We're not against the training," said Paul Lau, executive director of the Sportswear Apparel Association. "It's just that right now this is a busy season."
Chau Ying-cheung, who is 45 and has worked in factories for the last nine years, said the industry's seasonality is a big problem. Cheung is not going to stop learning English, she said, because she knows the factory jobs will not last.
"One month later, there's almost no work," Cheung said. "I'm looking for a better career."
Yu and Cheung are not leaving the garment industry, just moving up. Both are enrolled in an apparel-training program that teaches people to work in the sample rooms of fashion designers like Vera Wang and Donna Karan.
Hsiuhua Chiang, who has run the program -- which is now getting help from the fund -- said that she had been able to place 20 of the 25 graduates from the previous class and felt optimistic.
Factory owners desperate for workers have resorted to taking out full-page want ads in the city's Chinese newspapers, but they say they have gotten minimal results. Some have also requested that job training be put off temporarily.
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