FASHION—Apparel Makers Face Harm From Power Blackouts

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L.A.’s apparel manufacturers and contractors dependent on a quick turnaround to produce trendy apparel and fill orders rapidly are worried that rolling blackouts this summer will endanger their business at a time when apparel sales are sagging.

Many of the garment makers, which operate in Southern California Edison’s service territory, fear that idled plants and resulting overtime caused by power outages could cost them millions of dollars, jeopardize contracts and damage relationships with customers.

Many of these manufacturers need to produce their clothing in the United States instead of Mexico or China because they make fashionable apparel whose styles change as quickly as a teenager’s whims. Or they make upscale clothing that requires close attention to quality.

Local apparel makers got a taste of life without electricity in March when a two-hour break in power left their machinery idle and their workers wondering what to do.

It created a big problem for companies such as Koos Manufacturing Inc. in South Gate, which does a big business in denim wear for such trendy retailers as J. Crew, The Gap and Abercrombie & Fitch, all stores which vie for the teens and Gen X crowd, who are impulse buyers.

“It’s a big problem,” said Koon Yang, general manager for Koos Manufacturing. “Right now they (Edison officials) don’t give enough notice to prepare.”

Koos Manufacturing, which employs 1,700 workers at two facilities spread over 350,000 square feet, has not developed a contingency plan for an outage. But it would put a major kink in the production schedule of the trendy jeans ordered by fashion-conscious store owners who in this tough retail climate are keeping their inventories low and need fresh shipments at a moment’s notice.

Koos Manufacturing has ruled out buying on-site power generators because it would be too expensive to buy enough machines to crank out all the energy it needs to power the factory.


Faced with overtime

Right now, the company would either have to send its workers home during an afternoon power outage or be faced with paying large amounts of overtime if the outages occurred in the morning.

“We may have to shut down for the whole afternoon during the electrical blackouts,” Yang said. “Right now there is no option.”

One of the largest apparel manufacturing areas at risk is Gardena, an Edison service area that has become a mecca for clothing makers that want to be close to the local seaports and Los Angeles International Airport.

Officials at family-owned Da-Rue of California Inc. in Gardena, which makes women’s clothing sold in upscale boutiques in areas such as Palm Desert, are worried that repeated blackouts would prevent them from filling their orders within the 15-day time period they promise.

“If we get two or three or four interruptions in a three-week period, we won’t be able to get our goods out on time,” said Mark McElreth, a Da-Rue vice president.

The $20 million (annual revenues) company has a two-hour battery back-up system to operate its computers, telecommunications equipment and shipping machinery only. But beyond that, the company would have dozens of idled workers.

Da-Rue officials are not only worried about their own factory, where they design and cut their own goods, but they also are concerned about the several South Bay contractors who sew their garments. “We’re very dependent on contract labor,” McElreth said.


Budgeting problems

Making matters more difficult is that officials can’t budget adequately for the blackouts because they don’t know how many might occur.

But the sheer number of machines at many of the manufacturers makes it difficult to rely on generators.

Way Out West Inc. employs 38 people who make disposable safety garments for automobile industry workers. The company would have to buy a generator the size of a bungalow to power its dye-cutting machines, pressers, compressors and 40 sewing machines.

“If we have an order that has to go out and we need to meet our deadline, we will just have to work overtime,” said Joe Liberto, the plant manager.

Several contractors and manufacturers have asked their employees if they would be willing to start work at 5 a.m. or 6 a.m. instead of 7 a.m., so they could get their work done by mid-afternoon when most rolling blackouts occur. Most have agreed, and schedules are being adjusted at many apparel manufacturers, including the Fabric Barn in Long Beach, which makes ribbons and lace for customers around the world.

“We feel that the way energy suppliers are planning it now, where they just turn your electricity off, it couldn’t be worse,” said the Fabric Barn’s Jay Keegan. “If they would only pick a day or an afternoon when the power is off, then we could plan to be closed, and life would be simple.”

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