The Progressive Jewish Alliance is committed to working to end sweatshop labor. With our coalition partners, we examine this global problem and craft local, achievable responses.  We won’t solve the problem of sweatshop labor overnight, but we can take steps to alleviate it. Find out what you can do!

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Sweatshops: A Jewish Issue

The Jewish Obligation to Pursue Worker Justice

PJA’s Campaign and Its Successes

What You Can Do: PJA’s Kosher Clothes Campaign

Learn More: Articles and Resources

Sweatshops: A Jewish Issue

The garment industry (or shmateh business), which has been fraught with problems such as dangerous working conditions and low pay since its birth in the Industrial Revolution, has a unique relationship to the Jewish community. Beginning in the 19th century, Jewish immigration to the United States provided an easily exploitable workforce for garment factories. Not only did many of our ancestors work in sweatshops, they also formed unions, fought for labor rights, and helped pioneer groundbreaking initiatives like the 1910 Protocol of Peace, which sought to eradicate sweatshop conditions. 

Jews were also, and still are today, retailers, manufacturers, and factory owners in the garment industry. This history, and diversity of perspectives, allows us to better understand and work to eradicate modern-day sweatshops.

Learn more about the history of Jews in the garment industry and in worker rights movements: order PJA’s No Shvitz Booklet!

The Jewish Obligation to Pursue Worker Justice

Jewish texts and tradition provide standards on how to live as ethical Jews, including how to ensure fair treatment of workers. The Torah states:

You shall not abuse a needy and destitute laborer, whether a fellow countryman or a stranger in one of the communities of your land. You must pay him wages on the same day, before the sun sets, for he is needy and he urgently depends on it. (Deuteronomy 24:14-15)

Ramban (Nachmanides) comments on this passage, saying:
The intention here is that we should pay him at the end of the day, for if we do not pay him immediately when he leaves from work, he will go home and he will die of hunger at night.

This sentiment is echoed in the Babylonian Talmud, Bava M’tzia 3a:
Whoever withholds an employee’s wages, it is as though he has taken the person’s life from him.

 As Jews, we recognize that these standards apply to today’s workers and to our responsibility to stand with them as they struggle to provide for themselves and their families. 

PJA’s Campaign and its Successes 



PJA helps lead a California Sweatfree coalition that has passed Sweatfree procurement ordinances in the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco and the LA Unified School District.  These policies are groundbreaking – they mandate that the garments purchased by the government bodies be sweatshop-free, and the LA and San Francisco ordinances were passed with $100,000 of funding that will go toward enforcement. Los Angeles was the first American city to monitor the workplace conditions in which its goods are produced, and San Francisco has passed the strongest anti-sweatshop law in the country. 

Our coalition includes Global Exchange, Chinese Progressive Association, UNITE HERE, Garment Worker Center, Sweatshop Watch, Asian Pacific American Legal Center, New College of California, former State Senator Tom Hayden, No More Sweatshops, and many others.

Support the Sweatfree Berkeley Campaign 

PJA is working to pass a sweatfree procurement ordinance in the City of Berkeley.  This ordinance is modeled on the ones passed in Los Angeles and San Francisco.  On Tuesday, April 18th 2006 the Berkeley City Council unanimously approved the development of an anti-sweatshop ordinance in Berkeley.  To read the Daily Californian article about this, click here.

If you are a Berkeley resident, please write the Mayor and your city councilmember to thank them for supporting the Sweatfree Berkeley Ordinance, and ask them to make sure it is enforced by allocating adequate funding for an independent, non-profit monitor.

The Kosher Clothes Campaign:  Buy Sweatfree Goods!


Jewish institutions have an opportunity to model a commitment to the fair treatment of workers, to use our purchasing power to build the sweatfree movement, and to practice tikkun olam, repairing the world.

There are sweatfree alternatives for organizations buying T-shirts, sweatshirts, or other garments!  PJA is asking summer camps, organizations, and synagogues throughout the state of California to sign onto the “Kosher Clothes Campaign” – to commit to purchase goods produced under fair labor conditions. 

To read more about the campaign and find resources for sweatfree purchasing, download our brochure by clicking here, or contact the office to have one or more sent to you by mail.  Please help us spread the word about this campaign – let us know if there are organizations you can talk to about making the commitment. You can also download our list of Sweatfree Alternatives, which features t-shirt and sweatshirt producers that treat workers fairly.

**New Resource** - Click here to view our list of sweatshop-free kippot! The perfect choice for a bar or bat mitzvah, sweatshop-free kippot (skullcaps, or yarmulkes in Yiddish) are available now in a wide variety of styles, colors, and fabrics. Visit the websites below to view pictures of these kippot, which are made all over the world, from New Jersey to South Africa and Guatemala. We encourage b’nai mitzvah classes, summer camps and congregations to coordinate sweatfree kippot purchases with educational workshops about labor rights and Jewish values – contact PJA today to get started.

Both PJA offices are actively working to bring you sweatshop-free options and resources. To find out more or get involved, contact us: 

Northern California
Zach Lazarus
Phone: 510.527.8620
pbhandelman@pjalliance.org

Southern California 
Jonathan Matz
Phone: 323.761.8350
jmatz@pjalliance.org


Learn more: Articles and Resources

- Purchase PJA’s No Shvitz: Your One-Stop Guide to Fighting Sweatshops. Click here to find out more!

Articles:
- Breakin' A Sweat: Garment-worker advocates worry about the enforcement of Los Angeles' unique anti-sweatshop ordinance, Los Angeles CityBeat, (3/15/05); http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1800&IssueNum=93
-  SF pledges to use purchasing power to produce sweatshop reform, Associated Press, September 14, 2005;  http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/sweatshops/3467.html