TIPP cap, 1990s

This baseball cap belonged to a member of the Targeted Industries Partnership Program, a joint enforcement and education effort of the California Department of Industrial Relations, the California Employment Development Department, and the U.S. Department of Labor focuses on stopping unfair competition and worker exploitation. TIPP’s most prominent case — the El Monte sweatshop — was cracked by investigators from the California Department of Industrial Relations.

On August 2, 1995, police officers raided a fenced seven-unit apartment complex in El Monte, California. They arrested eight operators of a clandestine garment sweatshop and freed 72 workers who were being forced to sew garments in virtual captivity. Smuggled from Thailand into the United States, the laborers’ plight brought a national spotlight to domestic sweatshop production and resulted in increased enforcement by federal and state labor agencies. The publicity of the El Monte raid also put added pressure on the apparel industry to reform its labor and business practices domestically and internationally.

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