Textile Insight

50 • Textile Insight ~ November/December 2018 textileinsight.com OUT OF CONTEXT DENVER'S APPAREL AND OUTDOOR INDUSTRY Summit had its 5th annual gathering recently complete with distinguished speakers and a standing room only crowd that was some- what on the rowdy side. Loud, young, and enthusiastic, it was an excellent environment for noshing a little wine and cheese while listening to short presentations from the experts regarding the reshoring of sewn goods to the USA. I was there to see two speakers; Mike Miller, CEO of the Airtex Group and a co-founder of The Maker's Coalition in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Deborah Vandermar, that group's new executive director. The subject of the presentation was the story of The Maker's Coalition formation and their involvement in the cre- ation of Detroit's new Industrial Sewing and Innovation Center's (ISAIC), an inner-city collaborative effort known for its innova- tive and robust training curriculum. These programs are among the more prominent and successful efforts to integrate all the moving parts related to creating a viable sewing workforce with support from the community and local industry. Both groups are funded by a number of sources including social non-profits, grants from the state and federal governments and financial assistance from private companies. Their message emphasized the importance of two huge issues involved in teaching people how to sew: standards and appren- ticeships. Standards are the baseline abilities that an operator must command to be an effective member of a production team. They include language, math, and the skills required to control a vari- ety of materials while construct- ing seams with a v a r i e t y o f industrial sewing machines. When a regional labor force has shared and accepted sewing norms, the workers can move to new opportunities more easily and the manufacturers are happier with the workers they hire. With a Department of Labor certification behind the standards, the stitchers earn self-respect and the companies where they work get a more consistent and higher quality product. The apprenticeship program's curriculum is 2000 hours of on the job training com- bined with 192 classroom hours. It is not a casual commitment for the apprentices or the masters that take them on. Mr. Miller and Ms. Vandermar both commented on the time it takes to teach competency and develop the trade. Companies involved tailor apprentice programs to reflect their own unique product needs providing a soft entry for new hires preparing for full time production work. The challenge Colorado's Front Range faces is twofold. First, you have to have the jobs for the trainees to apprentice in and aspire to, i.e. some companies have to already be in place and producing product. Denver is well below the national average for sewing jobs per capita. And second, from the worker's point of view all these hurdles and hoops and hours seem like a lot for someone to go through just to end up with a burger joint wage. Currently the average pay for sewing machine operators in Colorado is $13.50/hour, which doesn't sound like much in Denver, but it is a living wage in the more rural counties of our state. Unfortunately, the businesses that want to design, market and sell locally- made sewn goods are overwhelmingly located in the high cost of living metro corridor. That is the conundrum; production sewing is so undervalued that it can only take place where poor people live while the product they make is so valuable it can only be sold where rich people live. The push to sew domestically isn't going away. However, one thing is for sure, for sewing to be a stable and skilled trade no matter where it takes place, it will have to lead to a middle class lifestyle for the work- ers that take it on. l Disclaimer: Mr. Gray thinks that Hurdles and Hoops was a drinking game he played while in college. His opinions and libations are his own and the Publisher may not share them. Stitchers in the Square State By Kurt Gray Colorado Looks to Reintroduce a Sewn Goods Industry

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