LOS ANGELES — Forever 21, the teen apparel retailer, and 33 garment workers in Los Angeles factories have settled a lawsuit in which the workers alleged they were exposed to dangerous conditions and denied lawful wages.
The suit was filed in 2001 by 19 workers at six factories. In March 2002, a U.S. District Court judge dismissed the lawsuit against Forever 21. The workers appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which overturned the ruling, saying state issues were involved. The plaintiffs proceeded in state court, where 14 workers joined the original 19 and the number of factories increased to 21.
The settlement also marked the conclusion of a boycott against the retailer launched by the Garment Worker Center in September 2001.
“We’re pleased to work together with the GWC to improve working conditions in and around Los Angeles,” Larry Myers, senior vice president of Forever 21, said in an interview. “We don’t feel fundamentally that we’ve done anything wrong and we still maintain that. We do have a policy in place, which has been in effect for two years, where if someone who’s working on clothes says that they were mistreated we will have the vendor send a monitoring organization to go out there and tell us what the facts are.”
The Asian Pacific American Legal Center and GWC said in a statement that “Forever 21 Inc., the Garment Worker Center, Sweatshop Watch and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, on behalf of several Los Angeles garment workers represented by it, have reached an agreement to resolve all litigation…the parties have agreed to take steps to promote greater worker protection in the local garment industry.”
Details of the settlement were not disclosed.