It seems appropriate to post this in the days leading up to the USA’s Independence Day. Unionwear located in Newark, NJ is the real deal in terms of union made, USA made hats, bags and other items. Their owner Mitch Cahn is a a strong advocate for worker’s rights (and a pretty fun guy if you ever get to hang out with him.) Unionwear has an interesting take on recent developments in small business regarding the Affordable Care Act and minimum wage increases.

“Why did several USA hat manufacturers either just close their doors, announce significant price increases, or cut their domestic hat selection down to a pittance?  The Obama small business exemption just expired on June 30, the same day that many recently enacted state and city minimum wage laws went into effect. Any factory that was holding out for the Supreme Court to kill Obamacare was faced with their labor costs suddenly–like next week–increasing by as much as 30%.

Why hats? Hats, unlike t-shirts and bags, are almost all labor. Most of the USA hat factories in the promotional industry contract their hats out to factories that were affected, or had thriving businesses importing. Rather than risk losing money, they pulled the plug until they could figure something out.

So how is Unionwear growing?  We are a union shop. We already figured out how to pay living wages and health care and still compete with domestic sweatshops. And with Obamacare… our health care costs actually decreased!”