Manic Metallic Supports Worker Protections At All Levels Of The Fashion Industry

One thing that has always driven Manic Metallic as a media company is our desire to take part in creating a better fashion industry. Our ethos is, after all, to promote fashion as an “art, discipline, and societal force for change”.

Recently, we attended/participated in a couple of events that promote this ethos, and we’d like to share what those events were along with how they proceeded.

Friday, 9/8/2023: Model Alliance Press Conference, Spring Studios, New York

We were slated to participate in this event as allies of the organization (i.e: standing up front with the organization) but decided upon arrival that providing press coverage would be an equally important component of the proceedings.

Model Alliance, for reference, is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that aims to “promote fair treatment, equal opportunity, and more sustainable practices in the fashion industry, from the runway to the factory floor”. One of the many ways in which they have undertaken this mission in recent years is through championing legislation that seeks to create more hospitable workplace conditions for fashion workers.

This particular press conference was held in front of Spring Studios on the first full day of New York Fashion Week in support of the Fashion Workers Act – a New York State-level bill that would regulate management and talent companies if passed. Models were joined by SAG-AFTRA actors and the Writers Guild of America, East – both of whom stood in solidarity with their efforts to gain worker protections for all fashion workers.

The purpose of this press conference specifically was to urge the New York State Assembly to pass the Fashion Workers Act during the upcoming session of the legislature. Models often lack basic worker protections in fashion, owing to the fact that they’re often considered independent contractors.

Quite predictably, modeling agencies are offering stiff resistance to this proposed bill, lobbying against it in Albany despite it having support from many fashion industry organizations. Agencies in opposition to the Fashion Workers Act include Elite, Next, Ford, Wilhelmina, One, and True. Also quite predictably, many of these agencies believe that the Fashion Workers Act will harm their business.

180,000 people are employed in the fashion industry in New York, amounting to 6% of the city’s workers, and creating almost $11 billion in total wages. This amount of people, to give you an idea of what we’re looking at here, would qualify as a mid-sized city in the United States.

Here is a basic rundown of what the Fashion Workers Act would require of management companies in New York State:

• Establish a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of their talent
• Provide models with copies of contracts and agreements
• Notify formerly represented models if they collect royalties on their behalf
• Register and deposit a surety bond of $50,000 with the NYS Department of State
• Protect the health and safety of models, including by establishing a zero-tolerance policy for abuse

Management companies would have to discontinue:

• Presenting power of attorney as a necessary condition for models to enter into a contract with the management company
• Collecting signing fees or deposits from models
• Charging models interest on payment of their earnings
• Charging more than the daily fair market rate for accommodation
• Deducting any other fee or expense than the agreed-upon commission
• Renewing the contract without the model’s affirmative consent
• Imposing a commission fee greater than twenty percent of the model’s compensation
• Taking retaliatory action against a model for filing a complaint
• Engaging in discrimination or harassment of any kind against a model on the basis of race, ethnicity, and other legally permissible categories under Section 296(a) of the Executive Law

More information on Model Alliance can be found here. More information on the Fashion Workers Act can be found here.

Tuesday, 9/12/2023: Remake Lobby Day, Capitol Hill, Washington DC

Here, at Remake’s Lobby Day in Washington D.C., Manic Metallic’s role was as a direct participant. This Lobby Day event was held in order to advocate for protections that would create safe working conditions for garment workers across the United States that are similar to the rights that California garment workers began receiving when the Garment Worker Protection Act became official state law on January 1, 2022. These national worker protections would take the form of the Fashioning Accountability and Building Real Institutional Change (FABRIC) Act, which has the goal of ending wage theft for garment workers, establishing brand accountability, and incentivizing the return of garment production in the U.S.

A sizable group of personnel from various sectors of the fashion industry traveled from across the country to have their voices heard and do their part to create a better fashion industry for everyone at all levels. Our founder, Liberty Imhoff, joined the Pennsylvania delegation to meet with officials from the offices of Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) and Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) with the goal of garnering their support for the FABRIC Act, which was recently reintroduced in Congress by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY). The large crowd of activists at Lobby Day included entrepreneurs, models, activists, garment workers, and more. It was inspiring to witness, and it gave hope for the future that there are great people in this industry working to change things for the better.

Again, here is a basic listing of what the FABRIC Act would entail if passed into federal law:

• Enforces minimum wage standards, ending wage theft
• Combats factory violations with workplace protections
• Increases transparency of brand practices
• Revitalizes domestic manufacturing with a multi-million dollar grant program

More information on Remake can be found here. More information on the FABRIC Act can be found here.

Fashion can be a tough field in which to work – especially if your goal is to build an ecosystem that treats all workers fairly as well as the environment. Progress is slow, but it always is – we just need more people willing to roll up their sleeves and consistently do the work to create the conditions where we can all do what we love while being respected and while being able to support both ourselves and our loved ones.

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