I filed with the local magistrate for non-payment and received a judgment earlier, this month. I have heard nothing from Debbie’s company since it has been served. It maybe holidays, it may be lack of attention. Who knows?

Interesting thing, though. I received a phone call from one of Debbie’s former subcontractors, today. She’s looking for work to keep busy while snowed in. She and I commiserated a while and, lo’ and behold, I may be able to interpret one of these chargebacks.

“No sticky tape on bottom hem” - at least, according to this source - should be interpreted as:
reinforce the garment shell with strip fusing *and*
reinforce the garment lining with strip fusing

Apparently, Debbie’s company applies “sticky tape” to the hem of both the shell and lining of their jackets. This is what, in Debbie’s words, “keeps the lining from falling out”.

This would be the first I’ve ever seen this practice. My personal opinion is that this is a waste of materials and would require two different weights of fusbile interfacing to execute properly.

That aside, if I had held steadfast to requiring spec sheets, I would have known this company’s standards differed and could have discussed these matters before agreeing to take on the work.

This post has hit a nerve with me, because I turn away companies like Debbie’s all the time…

I can see how Richard’s bluntness and use of “Traditional British Terminology” makes Debbie feel threatened (perhaps even quite ignorant) when she’s supposed to be the carrier of the family business legacy.

The tactic of making someone feel ignorant (by questioning their use of terminology) worked brilliantly for me during my corporate years whenever I had to deal with people who tried to take credit for my work or who had a big ego problem
I can usually tell when someone suffers from an acute case of “old dog’s syndrome” within 3 minutes…
Them most likely carriers tend to be individuals who have been in the business for a few years and think that in order to survive they have to find quick fixes and refuse to consider that perhaps their business model needs an update instead

I have worked in numerous countries (US, Latin America, Europe, Asia) so I think I know something about the importance of communicating clearly across several languages….. In this case though, it was obviously more about trying to test Richard’s reaction.

Just because Richard may not be as diplomatic as some people would like, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t know what he’s doing…

That said, I worked (many years ago) for a company where the owner was very abusive and was doing a lot of things that were clearly illegal…
I finally built up the courage to sue her which then opened the floodgate of lawsuits from other former employees who had been wronged (and I mean really big things like getting seriously hurt on the job and not being sent to the doctor) … A couple of years after I won my settlement, they wen out of business and at the time they were dealing with 6 lawsuits.

I can honestly say that they made me who I am today!

Something that didn’t don on me until now. Every time I’ve chatted with Gloria, it was just above a whisper. I just thought that was her volume level, which I try to meet, in kind. It’s a good thing I did - otherwise I might have drawn attention and invoked “the wrath”, sooner.

And Richard is right in that there was a LOT of material, conversations on both sides. I had to reduce it down as best as I could and maybe it was weighted a tad against Richard but I felt his position could handle the extra load (case against him) because I felt he had standing. Debbie did/said some really nasty, mean, hateful things, entirely unnecessary unkind things that I didn’t excerpt; she’s a real downer.

Boy, I didn’t know about the booth rental thing and only being able to make her products on them. I’m surprised nobody’s ever called the department of labor. I’m sure it’s because her workers are desperate or who knows, maybe she threatens to call immigration if they complain. Even people who are legal fear immigration. They think if they complain, their papers will be revoked. I can’t stand people who feed on people’s fears (too much of what Nadine said is TRUE!). Vampires.

But, c’mon: “strip fusible” is only esoteric if you’ve never ordered it. I mean: read the invoice, lady. I can’t imagine what her suppliers think if she calls it “sticky tape”. Maybe they’ve just learned her code and it’s easier to get her off the phone.

Note to self: One makes allowances for customers who pay their bills promptly.

Looking back, the bone of contention was how I handled the booth rental situation. I delivered one lot of jackets and there were two minor errors that needed to be repaired. On one jacket, the sleeve tack pulled against the shell. And on the other, the toptitching was uneven over a 4” area. I pulled up a seat at an empty sewing machine and made the repairs – maybe 20 minutes, total.

Two errors of this magnitude on a rush order lot of 12 jackets is not the end of the world. Personally, I don’t consider this to reflect poorly on workmanship. How the stitcher behaves, however, might. For example: if the stitcher refused to make the repairs, huffed and puffed about having to or let the repairs linger and delayed the shipment, those are *real* concerns for me. Debbie, on the other hand, feels any error reflects poorly and decided to let me know this as she walked by my station: “I thought you were a taaay-lerr”.

Statement withheld: “Give me a break, lady! I just sewed 12 jackets in 3 days. And, I have a full-time day job, too. You try being ‘perfect’ at 2:AM while your eyes are burning. PS: your fabric selection sucks!”

BTW: I think Kathleen mentioned, once, that a sample stitcher can sew about three fully-lined fused jackets in an 8-hour shift. That should give you an idea what 4 per day can do to a person. But, I persevere.

To the question about “is it okay to do work other than Debbie’s at her machines?” The answer is “no”. While I was making repairs, I saw one stitcher altering the hem on a pair of jeans for herself. She was chastised for using the company’s equipment for personal work. Frankly, to me, this insinuated an Employer-Employee relationship. And, I’ve witnessed this situation many times over the years.

When I was checking out, Debbie chastised me, again: “I thought you were a taaay-lerr” and then also told me she charges booth rent. She told me she would “forego the fee this time because she needed the jackets right away”. I explained that I have never paid booth rent in a factory and saw no reason to. That’s when she told me the internal staff were subcontractors and that the arrangement has worked fine for “many years”.

With my cage sufficiently rattled, I made my vital mistake: “You mean, Gloria pays you rent for the machine she uses all day, every day?” “Yes.” “And you think it’s OK to yell at her for using her machine any way she sees fit?” “It’s not HER MACHINE.” “It is while she’s renting it!”

Note to self: only take on a bully when you’re prepared to wrestle them to the ground.

In my past experience, I could give a rat’s behind who uses my equipment (or, the equipment I’m responsible for) during downtime. Stitchers are paid piecework when they’re working on my projects. If they want to use their thread and my equipment to do up a quick project here-and-there, who am I to complain? “After production is done” is the only stipulation I have. I can count on one hand how many times I’ve had to say that. To find out this stitcher was renting the booth and was then chastised, I was hot! Of course, the fuel had already been provided in several doses, so I only needed a reason to let it ignite. This seemed as good a reason as any.

What was learned for the cost of tuition?
1. Early warning signs.
2. Life is too short to worry about who’s more right.
3. If the work isn’t ready to take in, refuse it.
4. Let the customer ask why work is refused. If they don’t care enough, neither should you.
5. As long as the customer pays the bill on-time, they’re a good customer.
6. When a customer becomes too costly to maintain (e.g. slow payer, too much effort, everything is a crisis, etc.) it’s time to fire them.

This isn’t the core of the post but one of things I don’t get is this “booth rental” concept. If the operators have to conform to Debbie’s techniques, hours, and work flow all that’s really going on is operators paying to use a machine. What do they get out of it? Why pay Debbie vs having another factory pay you as an employee?

Are Debbie’s operators professionals who sew for other manufacturers besides her in their rented booths? If that’s fine - if it’s ok for a group of operators to take on a contract and produce it out of Debbie’s shop - then the practice of renting the booth seems to be a really progressive win-win for everyone.

I suspect that it isn’t ok though.

I wish it were as simple as saying that if I were buying uniforms I would want to know about the labour practices in the shop I was buying from, but the fact is that I buy stuff all the time and have no way of knowing what conditions it was produced in. I could buy from local (Montreal) manufacturers - but I know that some (many?) are sleazy. I could buy only really expensive stuff on the assumption that anything cheap has margins too small to support fair labour practices - but the retail price of really expensive stuff isn’t funnelled primarily to the operator.

I used to resolve this dilemma by sewing my own clothes or buying them from dressmakers, but I don’t have the private time any more and dressmakers move on. Besides, my job has shifted to slightly more casual clothing, so I’ve started to buy RTW. In any case I always bought my t-shirts and underwear and hiking clothes RTW.

So what do consumers do - ignore the issue? Buy only major brand names with advertising campaigns promoting their fair labour practices?

I too, believe she is trying to bully Richard and mold him into what they want.

She should be happy she has someone with advanced skills working with her. She should try and develop a relationship, not be critical of a persons language choices or wanting to make a better constructed garment.

I would have been ultra cautious as soon as I learned of booth and equipment rentals. That sounds so cheesy.

I worked for a boss like that and every day I was in fear I would make a mistake or do something wrong. It was my first job in fashion manufacturing. One day a couple of years later I realized I had learned a lot and I could trust my judgement. I didn’t feel afraid and that is when my boss turned very ugly. He immediately sensed he did not have the upper hand. Needless to say I don’t work there anymore. And the end of that chapter was 6 months later he had to close his business since I was running most of it and no suitable replacement ie: worked as hard as me and would put up with as much brutality was available.

Too typical a story unfortunately.

The only way to survive these people is to kill them with kindness. Let them have the upper hand and feel in charge, do what you need to do under the radar. As long as you challenge them directly in the relationship, the garmento reaction goes nuclear. Those old dogs do not learn new tricks.