If you're a sewing machine operator, this is the kind of place you want to work. Cristal pays for health insurance. There's a subsidized restaurant on campus. Ceiling fans keep things cool. Overtime is paid, but it's optional, not required. And at least once a shift, music blares over a loud speaker to make everyone stand and stretch for a few minuteseso, of course, this is still a minimum job, about 13 dollars a day, and it's still tough, repetitive, manual labor. While we peered over her shoulder, lina maria tascon, the single mam who said she put sweat and love into these shirts, she was madly stitching on one slender neck after another. I

don't say people really think that sewing operators are skilled. Bill fraser, jocke's director of manufacture, but they're highly skilled with their hand movements and and that's where they gain their efficiency.

He says he's been in so many factories he can measure that efficiency just by listening to the length of the silence between seams. The workers in one factory, can they be twice as fast as the workers in another factory. Yes, you've seen that? Yes. The day we visited, all eight women stayed from six a m to seven p m in order to get the shirts done in time. It was good and dark by the time noreli morales got home to the barebones apartment she shares with her mam and three year old daughter, mariana, crawled as fast as she could into her mamma's lap to snug. Morale says, sure she regrets not staying in school long enough to get a job pays more for less, taxing work. She started sewing because she and her family needed money. Now she's kind of stuck. Hard to get a better job unless she goes to school. And with this schedule and a kid, there's no time for that. But then you remember that there are people worse off than you. She says, i'm not as bad off as sooitodid. But there's a flip side to morali's relative good fortune. Her job may be in jeopardy. There is a saying that is

going to sound horrible, but our industry fallows poverty. Our

industry follows poverty.