The ILGWU started out well enough, when it was a collection of Hebraic ex-Wobblies, and gangsters like Rothstein worked to resolve strikes. After a spell Lepke Buchalter and his ilk were raking off dues and extorting employers, and once the union was no longer about wages and benefits, well, in comes the jar full of stinkification. Little matter. In time most production would go oversees-but not without Los Angeles gaining the honor of developing the largest number of sweatshops in America (in your face, 7th Avenue!).
The co-op, market, novelty and typewriter shop are now a beauty salon, bakery, auto stereo and tuxedo place, and any hint of transoms has disappeared (transoms having gone the way of typewriter shops) but the building maintains an incredibly sexy streamlined aluminum band of canopy across its façade:
-there are 5,000+ garment trade businesses in Los Angeles-and you think buying from American Apparel will alleviate you from the inherent disservice you do to humanity by being alive? Think again.
