 Clothes are displayed for sale on the street in Los Angeles. (Pablo Unzueta for The Washington Post) By Chico Harlan LOS ANGELES -- He had spent his latest 45-hour workweek hunched over a sewing machine, attaching labels and stitching collars and tightening black and gold blouses that would soon sell at bargain prices at a popular retailer. But now it was Saturday afternoon, paycheck time, when Pedro felt the full sting of that bargain: It was his own salary that helped keep the prices down for consumers. His manager gathered the 30-some workers from their stations in the unmarked brick building and passed out payslips. For the week, he said, he'd been paid $225. Or $5 per hour. "There's nothing to do but take it," Pedro said in an interview earlier this month, recalling his workweek. While immigrants often face criticism for stealing jobs, they are the ones being increasingly undercut in America's clothing industry, forced to accept wages below the legal minimum as retailers fight to pass on bargain prices to consumers. Federal regulators have uncovered a widespread practice of garment workers, most of them undocumented, being paid below the legal minimum wage, according to a recent Department of Labor report.
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