Sarah Gonzalez

The pay was... Three cents to five cents.

Three to five cents per piece.

That's the pay she started at.

Maria would do a hundred pieces a day, make five dollars, and she'd walk out happy, she says, feeling great about her five dollars a day.

Today?

Today Maria makes 15 to 16 cents per piece.

That can be okay pay if she gets a nice, easy sports bra.

But if she gets, I don't know, a jacket, a jacket with buttons, working as fast as you possibly can, sometimes you do not get close to making minimum wage.

Many times in her career, Maria has taken bundles of garments home, stayed up till 2, 3 in the morning, just trimming, trimming, trimming more and more pieces, trying to earn enough money to pay her bills.

Here, I'm a big brand.

Like, take the clothes home and work on it at home.

I'm like, what if you get the clothes dirty at your house?

She's like, oh, no, no, no.

You do not get the clothes dirty.

And many workers who get paid by the piece will do this.

Their whole families will work on the clothes together.

Now, sometimes when Maria gets a bundle of really time-consuming garments, she will ask for more pay.

Again, she doesn't speak English, but she makes gestures to the boss, she says, and gets by just fine.

She'll be like, mister, come, come, look, look how much trimming this garment needs.

He'll be like, okay, you want an extra cent?