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Joann Lo, an organizer from the Garment Workers Center, speaks about the goals of the demonstrati

Garment workers, students and community members gathered Saturday afternoon in Santa Monica to protest clothing retailer Forever 21’s alleged unfair labor practices and urged shoppers to boycott the store popular among college students.

The workers allege they are owed thousands of dollars in minimum wage and overtime pay by the retail store, and say they were exposed to unsafe and unsanitary working conditions.

The one-hour demonstration, part of a two-year long boycott effort, took place on the busy intersection of Broadway Avenue and Third Street. About 45 people formed the protest, made up mostly of former and current garment workers and a handful of UCLA students.

Kimi Lee, director of the Garment Worker Center, a nonprofit group focused on organizing garment workers, said the protest revolved around Forever 21’s alleged complicity with subcontractors to deny garment workers their wages and state-mandated breaks.

On Dec. 25, 2003, negotiations between the garment workers and Forever 21 broke down, prompting the protest.

According to the Garment Worker Center’s Web site, the garment workers announced an official boycott of Forever 21 stores on Nov. 17, 2001 and filed a lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges Forever 21 engaged in unfair labor practices by systematically outsourcing work to suspected sweatshops.

The demonstrators are also demanding Forever 21 assume responsibility for the wages and working conditions of its garment factories. Lee said the retail store holds a “position of power” to change the alleged sweatshop conditions.

Ann Song, manager of the Forever 21 store in Santa Monica, declined to comment on the protest or the demonstrators’ concerns.

According to an article published in the Los Angeles Times, retail store representatives have said the garment workers are not directly employed by Forever 21, and therefore, the retailer should not be held financially responsible.

Economically disadvantaged but politically active, several of the garment workers have participated in a number of outreach efforts to university students and community groups to build support.

Erika Aspericueta, a third-year political science and Chicana/o studies student, saw a presentation by former Forever 21 garment workers in her Chicana/o studies labor transnational organization class. She joined the garment worker’s e-mail network afterward, and has begun to help their cause.

“Since then, I’ve stopped shopping (at Forever 21),” she said.

Erika’s sister, Vanessa, a first-year biology student, said she attended the protest to support the immigrant community.

Aspericueta said she was sympathetic to the workers’ difficult immigrant experience.

“I wanted to support (them), especially the immigrants. Exploitation still happens,” she said.

One of the demonstrators, Zenaida Basavez, a 48-year-old Mexican immigrant, said she worked for nine months in a garment shop subcontracted by Forever 21 in 2000.

Basavez, who said she grew up without any schooling or education, had to show a white sheet of paper with her name printed on it to identify herself.

A separated mother of eight children with few employment options, Basavez said she immigrated to the United States in 1999 to help her children.

Working 50-hour weeks, Basavez said she earned about $180 to $200 a week, or $3.60 to $4 an hour.

“It’s not about money. It’s about dignity. We get stepped on ... over and over again. We just want to get treated like human beings,” she said, speaking in Spanish.