LOS ANGELES — They sew. They stitch. They cut. Their hands fly in silence as garments rush along the factory floor at American Apparel Inc.

Workers, operating in small groups, can calculate the results of their sweat. Their pay rates are posted for everyone to see, and the faster they work, the more their group earns.

Robert Jimenez, 39, a four-year veteran, doesn't mind the racelike pace that others have complained about to community and labor groups.

"I want more money," said Jimenez, whose factory owner boasts of having the world's highest-paid garment workers.

With most clothing sold in the U.S. manufactured overseas, American Apparel is an anomaly in an industry known for sweatshop conditions, low wages and few, if any, benefits. Its base pay is $9 an hour, substantially more than what other companies pay, and skilled workers can earn double that.

Yet American Apparel is not everyone's workplace hero.

Kimi Lee, director the Garment Worker Center, a nonprofit agency that counsels Los Angeles workers on their rights, said she can neither praise nor condemn the company.

"Even though there are things that make it better than other factories, it is not ideal," Lee said.

Workers have complained to her agency, she said, about "inhumane" production speeds and unbearable pressure to keep up with the pace. Slower workers eventually switch to less productive groups, she said.

Still, Lee said, the financial rewards at American Apparel are stellar compared with other garment makers. A 2004 survey by her group showed that the average wage was $3.18 an hour, a violation of federal and state laws. But Lee said companies get away with it because of a lack of inspection.

The average sewer's wage at American Apparel, which has 4,000 workers, is $12.50 an hour, and more-skilled and productive workers can earn up to $18.50 an hour. And the benefits are good.

Workers get company-supported medical coverage for themselves for only $8 a week, compared with an average of $31 a week paid by U.S. workers, according to Hewitt Associates, a health-cost consulting company. To encourage workers to use their healthcare benefits, there's a medical clinic at the factory.

The company also offers free English and citizenship classes to its largely immigrant Latino workforce. There's also company-supported low-cost lunches and free use of bicycles to get to and from work. Six massage therapists wander the plant, a converted seven-story railroad warehouse.

Company officials rebut criticism from those who consider it authoritarian, anti-union and, ultimately, no better than its low-wage competitors.

"Anybody can walk in this office," said Marty Bailey, the company's vice president of operations. "And if folks ever decide that they can be better represented by a labor organization, then Marty Bailey has failed."

Dov Charney, American Apparel's 37-year-old founder and senior partner, said treatment of his workers is key to his company's success. But his reasoning is more for what makes good business than for what is good.

Charney, a Canadian who started selling T-shirts in 1989 after dropping out of college, explained his philosophy: It is "80 percent the best way to make garments and 20 percent social responsibility."

Labor leaders fiercely condemn American Apparel because it rebuffed a bid several years ago from Unite Here, the garment workers union, to open the way for a union election.

After the company refused, the organizing drive fizzled, leaving the factory, like nearly most of the garment factories in Los Angeles, nonunion. The union has only 1,000 members out of the more than 70,000 garment workers in the area.

Among the charges raised in a complaint was that the company told workers it would close the plant if they voted to organize.

The National Labor Relations Board was preparing a hearing on the charges when American Apparel settled with those making the complaint. That ended the investigation.

"(Charney) comes out as the savior, but he is getting his numbers with his production, and he is doing it in a more sophisticated way. But he still runs a sweatshop," contends Cristina Vasquez, a regional official in Los Angeles for Unite Here.

When the company's sales took off several years ago, it proudly advertised its products as "sweatshop free." But it has largely dropped that tag from its advertisements.

Charney said most of American Apparel's clientele already know about its worker-friendly identity. That might bring customers into a store the first time, but they only return if they like the quality, explained Bailey, a veteran of industry giant Fruit of the Loom.