Garment companies must pay hourly wages and face fines for wage theft.
H.R. 10372 — FABRIC Act · Filed by Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) · 8 cosponsors · Introduced Sep 14, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
The bill stops garment makers from paying workers by the piece. Instead, workers must get paid by the hour at least the federal minimum wage. Big clothing brands like Nike and Gap become legally responsible. They are responsible if their hired shops break wage rules. Garment shops must sign up with the Department of Labor each year. They must report who owns them and any past wage theft. The bill creates a new federal office. It gives money to help garment makers in the United States.
Who it affects
Garment workers, mostly immigrant women, get guaranteed hourly pay and stop wage theft. Clothing brands face legal responsibility for their hired shops' wage theft. Garment shops must sign up and report to the government.
One thing to notice
Union garment shops can keep piece-rate pay if workers earn at least 110 percent of minimum wage. Brand shops can claim they did not know about wage theft. This might let them avoid legal responsibility.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
8 cosponsors: 8 Democrats.
- Sep 14, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Sep 14, 2026 — Referred to House Committee on Education and Workforce · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Education and Workforce”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Words to know
- piece-rate pay — Money paid for each item made, not for hours worked.
- federal minimum wage — The lowest hourly pay the federal government says employers must give.
- wage theft — When an employer does not pay workers what they earned.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (21,280 characters) on Sep 16, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,778 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-11-02.
“Garment companies must pay hourly wages and face fines for wage theft.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr10372/simple Report an error
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