WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) — A local screenprinter that supplies shirts to labor unions across the country is now starting to produce its own shirts as the number of American manufacturers continues to decline.
Image Pointe on Tuesday celebrated the launch of Dignity Apparel, located in a leased facility on Sheffield Avenue. The shirt-making shop is on the other side of U.S. Highway 218 from Image Pointe’s office at 1224 LaPorte Road.
The company’s 10 employees recently completed their training and were making sweatshirts on sewing machines as people arrived for the grand opening event. The operation also includes cutting tables to prepare the fabric for sewing.
The production line is the first of four planned at Dignity Apparel, according to the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier. Another sweatshirt line is planned along with two that can make either T-shirts or long-sleeved shirts. Other styles of shirts could be made if it expands more in the future.
Josh Ruyle, the companies’ chief executive officer, spoke at the noon-hour gathering as employees and guests ate a meal.
“We are so thrilled and we cannot wait to get at what’s in front of us,” he said before a ribbon cutting ceremony. “We’re full of hope, we’re full of faith, we’re full of optimism for what that means.”
Mayor Quentin Hart also spoke during the event, praising the company for its decision to expand in Waterloo.
“This is about building community one person at a time,” he said. “God bless you. Thank you for pouring back into this community.”
Ruyle noted that “we market and sell garments to labor unions,” which want to purchase products made in the United States. Labor unions have always been the focus of Image Pointe – founded by Jeff and Pat Swartzendruber, Ruyle’s in-laws. In recent years, though, the American facilities where the company could get its supply have dwindled to less than 10.
“In 1960, 95% of the garments that Americans wore were made in the U.S.,” Ruyle said “As of 2009, that number is down to 2%.”
He pointed to the “ills of the industry” in explaining why the company opened up its own shirt production facility to fill the gap in American manufacturers. A lot of shirt production has moved to China – which grows the cotton, produces the fabric and makes the shirts. But that industry uses forced labor from an oppressed Muslim minority group.
“All of us have garments with cotton picked by slave labor in western China,” said Ruyle.
With the help of production manager Miguel Garcia, Image Pointe decided to open its own operation in Waterloo. Garcia previously oversaw shirt production for a Chicago company that helped supply the Waterloo screenprinter before it was sold and started making other kinds of garments.
Ruyle said they anticipate adding another 25 employees by the end of the year as additional equipment arrives and production ramps up.
Jeff Swartzendruber said they hope to produce 25,000 sweatshirts and “up to a half million T-shirts” over the course of a year.
In finding employees for the shop, company leaders looked to immigrants who have settled in the Cedar Valley during recent years.
Ruyle said nine of the first 10 employees are from Waterloo’s Burmese community and eight were previously unemployed. He has found a lot of interest in working for Dignity Apparel among that community because the people need jobs. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, he noted, 48% of Waterloo’s adult Burmese population was unemployed compared to 2% of all Iowans.
They are getting in touch with other area immigrant groups to fill future positions. “We want this to be a place where people can find community,” he noted.
As a company that supplies products to labor unions, Dignity Apparel is also unionized. Employees are represented by the Painters and Allied Trades, which represents Image Pointe staff.
“If you really want to help people that are in poverty, the very best thing you can do is provide them with a job,” Ruyle said. And labor unions, he added, help companies “create not just jobs, but good jobs.”
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