No Sweat

Lifting the Label Behind the “Sweatshop-Free” Movement

An all-American tale about an all-American garment: The T-shirt. NO SWEAT takes a wild ride into the bowels of Los Angeles garment industry. Mostly undocumented workers at American Apparel and SweatX are offered better wages, benefits, even a shot at worker-ownership. But what is really behind the label?

Dark, dingy factories. Workers hunched elbow-to-elbow over machines. Nike. Guess. Kathy Lee Gifford. We are all too familiar with sweatshops, operating both in the U.S. and overseas. But does what's behind the label of what you wear always have to be linked to worker exploitation?

Enter SweatX and American Apparel, two hip T-shirt factories that operate in downtown Los Angeles , just blocks from each other. Both companies are committed to creating "sweat-free" clothing (i.e. their workers earn livable wages and get benefits, work in safe environments, etc). While Sweat X is backed by $2.5 million from ice cream-maker turned social activist Ben Cohen, (of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream), American Apparel was built from the ground up by controversial self-described Canadian "schmata" hustler, Dov Charney.

NO SWEAT is a fast-paced, behind-the scenes documentary that follows these two companies for one year, comparing their divergent business practices, interviewing workers, following a union drive, and zeroing in on the hopes and dreams of the garment workers themselves. While Dov gets slapped with sexual harassment allegations and openly resists unionization, Sweat X struggles to survive in the tight economic conditions that have sent so much of their competition overseas.