LA's mask factories shut down as hundreds of workers get sick
Source: The Guardian
LA's mask factories shut down as hundreds of workers get sick
Outbreaks have hit factories including LA Apparel, ordered to shut down amid 300 cases and four deaths
Paulina Velasco in Los Angeles
Sat 11 Jul 2020 22.34 BST
First published on Sat 11 Jul 2020 14.31 BST
Francisco Tzul has worked in the Los Angeles garment industry for eight years, sewing clothing on cramped factory floors and struggling to get by on low wages. An undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, Tzul found himself out of work when the pandemic hit in March. So when he heard in May that LA Apparel, a brand run by the former CEO of American Apparel, was hiring workers to make masks, he jumped at the chance.
“Here’s an opportunity, a golden opportunity, I told myself,” he told the Guardian in Spanish. “From one day to the next I became an essential worker, with more dignified wages.”
But this “golden opportunity” nearly cost him his life. Just two and a half weeks into the job he began experiencing symptoms of Covid-19, which he says he contracted at work. He wound up hospitalized and intubated, unsure if he would survive. Tzul emerged after more than a week in the hospital to find himself homeless, kicked out by his roommates on account of his illness.
Tzul is one of the many garment workers across Los Angeles recruited to meet a booming demand for face masks. LA Protects, a scheme implemented by the city to fast-track mask production, has partnered with numerous local companies to produce protective gear for frontline workers.
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The city program, combined with increasing demand from consumers and businesses, has spurred many LA garment companies to pivot to mask-making, hiring new workers and refocusing existing production facilities. But garment workers and advocates say it has come at the expense of the health of the people who make them.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/11/coronavirus-los-angeles-mask-making
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