Several of the nation’s leading fashion retailers have reportedly been profiting off the use of sweatshops while simultaneously championing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, prompting allegations of hypocrisy.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) recently announced that national department-store brands such as Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom, among others, were alleged by investigators to be selling garments produced by manufacturers and contractors accused of skirting national labor laws, according to the WHD’s 2022 Southern California Garment Survey.

“These companies care about one thing, and that’s profits,” Benji Gershon, founder and president of Dallas Jewish Conservatives, told The Dallas Express.

“I wish I could say I’m surprised, but I’m not. The amount of social posturing and marketing dollars spent on DEI initiatives is astounding, and the sole purpose behind it is to create the appearance and illusion of wokeism,” he said.

The alleged use of sweatshops from a brand like Dallas-based luxury retailer Neiman Marcus stands in stark contrast to its DEI messaging, especially given past statements by the clothing retailer’s executives.

“In retail, we are exceptionally skilled at operationalizing virtually any strategy or concept. So, I think we’re uniquely positioned to get results in belonging, or DEI,” said Eric Severson, chief people and belonging officer for Neiman Marcus.

“This is no different from any other challenge or problem you have in the business. It deserves the respect of treating it with the same rigor you would treat a marketing problem, a sales problem, or any other retail operations challenge,” said Severson.

“Historically, the fast-fashion industry in Southern California has been a hotbed for sweatshops,” WHD Regional Administrator Ruben Rosalez told The Dallas Express.

“The industry’s goal is to get these garments into the stores in as little time as possible so that clothing retailers can benefit from the latest fashion trends. And due to the proximity of sweatshops to retail stores in California, this becomes much easier to do,” Rosalez explained.

Southern California garment-sewing contractors and manufacturers were found in more than 50% of all instances to be illegally paying workers off-the-book wages with payroll records deliberately forged or not provided, the Labor Department’s enforcement task force stated.

Reportedly, in one particularly egregious case, garment workers were paid as little as $1.58 per hour for their work, well below California’s $15.50 legal minimum wage requirement, division investigators learned.

Commenting on the allegations, Gershon suggested that DEI initiatives are all about maintaining appearances and ensuring that you are not the next public enemy number one.

“As long as these companies are outwardly promoting inclusivity, diversity, and inclusion through their huge ad buys and marketing campaigns, then the woke media, leftists, and social justice warriors won’t blink an eye and they won’t attack them,” Gershon told The Dallas Express.

“We are fortunately seeing the social posturing and liberal wokeism backfire in a big way for some companies recently, just look at Bud Light and Anhuaser [sic] Busch,” he said, referring to the backlash the company received for partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

Clothing industry hypocrisy is nothing new, with incidents like this bringing to mind the 2018 scandal from the British clothing brand Burberry, which burned and destroyed millions worth of unsold clothes, accessories, and perfume in order to allegedly reclaim its exclusive brand status and fight off counterfeiters.

In addition to evading the minimum wage requirements, 32% of contractors were allegedly caught paying garment workers piece-rate wages — the practice of paying per item completed rather than at a fixed per-hour rate — which is illegal in California.

“Despite our efforts to hold Southern California’s garment industry employers accountable, we continue to see people who make clothes sold by some of the nation’s leading retailers working in sweatshops,” Rosalez said in a news release announcing the findings.

The truth is that “many people shopping for clothes in stores and online are likely unaware that the ‘Made in the USA’ merchandise they’re buying was, in fact, made by people earning far less than the U.S. law requires,” he added.

“This underground economy is quite prevalent here in Southern California, but sweatshops have popped up in other places like Las Vegas and Southern Texas, too,” Rosalez told The Dallas Express.

The full list of national retailers that have been swept into this sweatshop scandal, according to WHD, includes Bombshell Sportswear, Dillard’s, Lulus, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Socialite, Stitch Fix, and Von Maur.