LOS ANGELES (AP) – Ten years after she was freed from a suburban sweatshop prison, Nantha Jaknang still has nightmares about being locked behind its razor-wire fence, sewing for 16 hours a day without seeing the sun or moon.

In her dream, the men who held her captive demand she work harder.

“Tomorrow we need more work,” they tell her. “We need more.”

Shortly before dawn on Aug. 2, 1995, authorities stormed the apartment complex where Jaknang and some 70 other Thai immigrants slept on mats, 10 to a room, in El Monte, a working-class suburb east of Los Angeles.

Their slavelike treatment shocked Americans and sparked lawsuits, new regulations and even a Smithsonian exhibit.

The case brought dramatic changes but hasn’t eliminated wage and safety abuses in the garment industry, where the vast majority of workers are undocumented immigrants.

“Unfortunately, abuse is still an everyday occurrence,” said Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education. “Many are unaware of their rights, and even if they are aware they’re being victimized, they have no confidence that they can do anything about it.”

As they prepared for their annual reunion on Saturday, many of the El Monte workers still found satisfaction knowing their plight helped shed light on sometimes deplorable conditions.

“I never thought it would be that big,” said Sukanya Chuai Ngan, 44, who runs two restaurants with her husband Win, another former worker. “People, customers, see me and still say El Monte, El Monte.’ They remember.”

The workers won more than $4 million in lawsuit settlements against firms such as Mervyn’s, Montgomery Ward & Co. and B.U.M. International for which they allegedly made clothes through subcontractors. The companies admitted no wrongdoing and said they had no knowledge of the conditions.

After sharing money with Latino workers at another site run by the same employer, each Thai worker pocketed between $10,000 and $80,000, depending on their time at the complex.

They moved as far away as New Hampshire and Florida but remain a tightknit group. One man started his own garment factory, employing former El Monte co-workers. Several women opened spas, and more than one romance between workers spawned marriage and children.

“We are locked together now,” Jaknang, 47, said. “We are close like a family.”

Meanwhile, Congress has approved the granting of visas for immigrant victims of human trafficking and made it easier for investigators to get search warrants targeting suspected sweatshops.

In California, home to the largest segment of the U.S. garment industry, manufacturers must now guarantee that subcontractors pay workers fairly.

El Monte was the first of several high-profile sweatshop cases a decade ago. The negative publicity led companies such as Nike, Gap and even Kathie Lee Gifford’s clothing line to start issuing their own reports about working conditions at garment factories.

“It used to be see no evil, hear no evil. Now apparel companies have whole divisions for corporate responsibility,” said Julie Su, a lawyer at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center who represented the Thai workers.

The workers were lured to the United States with fake visas and the promise of earning $1,000 a month. But once inside the apartment building, bosses confiscated their passports and guarded them around the clock.

The little money they were paid went to buy food from a company store at jacked-up prices.

Win Chuai Ngan, 48, said many workers were afraid to try to escape because they spoke no English and owed money to their captors for visas and tickets to the United States. The complex was raided after a woman fled through an air vent in 1995 and went to authorities. Eight people were convicted in the case. Two remain at large.

Chuai Ngan became a manager at sewing factory and offered jobs to other El Monte workers. Eventually, he and Sukanya used a small business grant and some of the legal settlement money to open their first restaurant.

Most of the other workers remain in the garment industry.

In the decade since their plight was revealed, investigators haven’t seen another case as egregious. Still, abuse continues amid industry downsizing, as more and more work is moved overseas.

About 500,000 garment industry jobs remain in this country, compared to more than a million a decade ago, said Pietra Rivoli, a business professor at Georgetown University and author of “Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy.”

Larger retailers are careful to protect their brand name from workplace scandals, but small boutiques, Internet and catalogue retailers – a growing share of the market – are less likely to make sure that suppliers follow labor laws, said Ilse Metchek, executive director of the California Fashion Association.

And while state and federal enforcement efforts spiked after El Monte, payouts for overtime violations have declined in recent years.

Last year, federal investigations resulted in about $4.8 million in back pay to 6,722 employees, most of it for overtime, according to the Department of Labor. That’s less than half of what was paid in 2000.

In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently launched a new push to enforce state labor laws, saying he would add 62 new positions.

Jaknang said things are better at her sewing job now that she has a green card. But she still sees many undocumented workers paid less than minimum wage.

“They accept whatever the owner pays,” she said. “They hide when the inspection comes.”

AP-ES-08-06-05 1218EDT