Chinese immigrant workers in San Francisco are protesting the Loss of garment jobs they say are being outsourced to China. Former employees of apparel maker Nova Knits Inc. say they were laid off last month without prior notice, severance pay or benefits in violation of California state labor laws. The workers-mainly Chinese women who speak little English-say their jobs are being outsourced to China; now the world's largest clothing manufacturer.

For more than thirty years, industrialized nations have maintained textile import quotas to protect their domestic industries from foreign competition; but starting in 1995, the World Trade Organization started phasing out those quotas. They were eliminated altogether this year. This has accelerated the loss of garment jobs in the U.S. and other countries, as apparel manufacturers move production to China, where wages are low. China already exports more than $60 billion in textiles and clothing each year. The U. S., which once had 2.5 million garment workers, now only has about 500,000, mostly in California, New York and the South. The number of jobs remaining in the U.S. will probably drop even more now that American retailers can purchase almost all their clothing and textiles from China. While consumers benefit from the lower prices, domestic manufacturers say that unfair competition has forced them to lay off thousands of workers. In fact, in the first 90 days of this year, 17,200 American textile workers have lost their jobs; and 14 U.S. textile plants were shut down.