January 28, 2000 Press Release

The Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association has told 902 Covenant negotiator Edward B. Cohen that the findings of a human rights group suggest that garment workers in New York’s Chinatown are experiencing conditions even worse than those alleged about the CNMI in recent years, with little evidence of the reform efforts being carried out here.

Quoting a report from the New York-based Center for Economic and Social Rights, SGMA Executive Director Richard Pierce noted that the U.S. Department of Labor estimates 80 to 90% of the Chinatown factories are "sweatshops" by its definition and that of these, about 90% are unionized. The dominant union is UNITE [Union of Needletrades Industrial and Textile Employees], a frequent and harsh critic of the Saipan garment industry.

"How ironic [it is] that at the dawn of the 21^st century, a garment industry union is helping sweatshop operators do their business in New York while creaming off dues from their unknowing Chinese and Latino membership. How appropriate that UNITE publishes a newsletter titled ‘Stop Sweatshops News,’" Pierce wrote to Cohen.

The SGMA letter to Cohen was in response to his report to President Clinton late last year in which he urged a continued administration effort to federalize CNMI labor and immigration controls because, "commitment and momentum for long term change, unfortunately, has subsided." Cohen told the President that CNMI policies, "have resulted in large numbers of foreign workers being brought to garment and other factories in the CNMI for temporary work under conditions which both federal law enforcement officials and human rights groups believe are highly abusive."

But Pierce noted that the CESR blamed both the labor union and the U.S. Department of Labor, as well as the retailer and operator of a group of factories for abuses that they found went on, unchecked, for more than a dozen years:

"Many of the workers earned $4 per hour, with overtime never being paid, despite 60 hour workweeks; Average workdays were 11 hours per day, six days per week, with no heat or air conditioning on the weekends; Various forms of abuse, intimidation and harassment; illegal deductions from pay checks, no paid vacation, no maternity leave and much more," Pierce said. "And where was OSHA when the heat in the factories was turned off during winter weekends, among other outrageous actions by the factory operator?"

Pierce criticized Cohen for trying to describe the CNMI, once again, "as exceptionally out of touch with American life and values," saying that the human rights group study found that the recruiting fees that have led some to describe Saipan workers as "indentured servants," not only exist in New York and other American cities, but are worse. "The CNMI garment industry did not invent recruitment fees and neither it, nor the CNMI government for that matter, administers them, as your report repeatedly implies. These are not enforceable contracts in our courts any more than they are on the U.S. mainland."

Cohen also suggested that allowing migrant workers into the U.S. to pick crops is different than practices in the CNMI because the migrants hold only temporary jobs, as opposed to those in the CNMI. "Sure they’re temporary jobs," Pierce said, "except that most of the same people come back to harvest the crops every season." Pierce said that the powerful agricultural lobby makes sure that immigration laws allow this practice to continue. "I suggest that you poll some of the strawberry pickers sleeping under cardboard boxes in Congressman Miller’s district as to how they are enjoying, ‘the opportunity for economic and political integration,’ as you have it, that is being extended to them at the end of every growing season," the letter said.

As the ultimate example of hypocrisy in federal policy toward the CNMI and the garment industry, Pierce noted that President Clinton favors legislation that would lift all tariffs and quotas on African-made textiles. "Yet at the same time, your recommendations to him would condition the duty free access of our industry to the U.S. mainland on our slavish obedience to micro-management of our industry."