Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags Again is more than an exercise in nostalgia -- though there’s plenty of that.  It is a cautionary tale, a sort of parakeet in the mine shaft, about what the future holds for America.  And like many warnings of late (about terrorist threats, about Hurricanes in New Orleans) it’s been and continues to be ignored.

    Let me go a step further.  This is the film Michael Moore should have made, a documentary that will enrage you and make you open your window and yell, I’m not going to take it anymore.”

    Schmatta is a Yiddish word for rag, and on the surface this is a documentary about what is known as the rag trade, New York City’s once dominant garment industry.  In reality, though, it is about a great deal more.

    Filmmaker Marc Levin (Protocols of Zion) takes us on a journey from the early sweat shop days of the business to the start of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (remember the union’s commercial in song: Look for the union label?), and through the industry’s glory days. 

    Part of the joy of the film -- especially for people of a certain age who grew up in New York -- is to see old and now sadly forgotten faces, like that of ILGWU president Dave Dubinsky, who had the power to get politicians to do his bidding.

    New York was the port of entry for immigrants then and there were always jobs in the garment center, which ran from about Herald Square to Times Square along Seventh Avenue.  It was a step up to the middle class.  And while it didn’t make any of the workers rich, it provided a stable income and allowed their children to become doctors, lawyers -- and even a writer of television reviews.

    That’s all gone now. Joe Raico, a cutter, and union local executive, says what went on in the garment business “is a microcosm of everything going on in this country.  We don’t produce anything any more. We’re giving it all away.  Everything is made in China.

    There’s plenty of blame to go around.  Ronald Reagan firing the air traffic controllers created a union-busting mindset.  Clinton’s NAFTA didn’t help. 

    But the largest share of blame goes to greedy business people, the same ones who helped get us in to the economic mess we’re in now.  Large corporations took over family-run businesses that had been in business for generations.  The smaller companies recognized that profits and losses were part of life.

    The conglomerates don’t care about life; their sole concern is making money.  To do that, they make unrealistic profit demands on the once benevolent companies they take over, who must make cutbacks in benefits, staffing, quality, research and, when all else fails, move production overseas.

    The statistics are mind-blowing.  In 1965, 95% of the clothing Americans wore was made in this country.  In 1975, it went down to 80%.  It was just 70%, in 1985, 50% in 1995, and currently only 5% of our clothing is manufactured in this country.

    One of the benefits of globalization is lower costs.  But cheaper goods come at a price.  This is an important must-see film. ★★★★☆ -- Curt Schleier

    Schmatta: From Rags to Riches to Rags airs tonight (Oct.) 19, 9 p.m., on HBO.

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