The Ottawa Citizen January 13, 1999 National & international business: TOP U.S. COMPANIES SUED OVER FOREIGN 'SWEATSHOPS' LOS ANGELES (AP) - Newly filed lawsuits allege that thousands of Asians have been lured to the U.S. territory of Saipan, in the South Pacific, where they are forced to live under guard in rat-infested quarters while making popular clothing tagged "Made in the USA." More than 50,000 people, mostly young women, have been recruited from China, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Thailand with promises of good wages, only to wind up in sweatshops that "would make medieval conditions look good," plaintiffs lawyer William Lerach said Wednesday in Los Angeles. U.S. companies named in the suits have generally rejected the allegations. Saipan, a tropical isle in the Northern Marianas, "is America’s worst sweatshop," plaintiffs lawyer Al Meyerhoff said in New York City. Three lawsuits seek more than $1 billion US in damages, seizure of profits and unpaid wages for conditions they claim have persisted for a decade. Two class-action suits representing workers were filed in federal courts in Los Angeles and Saipan. The human rights groups Global Exchange, Sweatshop Watch, Asian Law Caucus and the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees filed suit in state court in San Francisco. Abuses in Saipan have been documented in the past. This represents the first legal attempt to hold U.S. retailers accountable for alleged mistreatment of workers by subcontractors under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, lawyers said at news conferences in New York City and Los Angeles. The subcontractors force people to work up to 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and threaten them with beatings and verbal abuse if they refuse unpaid overtime to meet quotas set by factory managers, the lawsuits allege. Workers’ passports are confiscated on arrival, they are not allowed to leave the factory compound and their social activities are strictly monitored, Lerach said. The 32 Saipan factories are mostly owned by Chinese, Japanese and Korean subcontractors. Of the 18 companies named in the lawsuits, Nordstrom, Warnaco, Tommy Hilfiger, J.C. Penney, Wal-Mart, Osh Kosh B’Gosh and Dayton Hudson Corp. insist they hire subcontractors that strictly follow U.S. labour laws. Other companies said they had no comment or did not immediately return phone calls. Wal-Mart said it does not accept merchandise from factories in Saipan. Pamela Rucker, spokeswoman for the industry group National Retail Federation, said whether it is misleading to use a "Made in the USA" label is a matter for the Federal Trade Commission and truth-in-labelling laws to regulate. "Without seeing the charges, the most that we can say is that retailers are understandably shocked by any such allegations made, and that they have codes of conduct they share with their suppliers, and that they only use suppliers that share the same commitment to moral, legal and ethical production," Rucker said. One woman identified as "Jane Doe I" claims she was told by co-workers when she arrived that employees who become pregnant have to get an abortion or be deported, the Los Angeles suit says. Other women echoed those claims in the documents. The workers live as many as eight to a room in guarded barracks enclosed by barbed wire and have no access to drinking water except the bottled water they’re forced to buy, the suits say. The suits allege some women are forced to work with injuries and endure sexual harassment, unsafe working conditions, unhygenic food and severe malnutrition while relatives in home countries are sometimes intimidated. Many allegedly pay as much as $7,000 US as a "recruitment fee" to work. Some are lured by recruiters who say they will be living just an hour’s train ride from Los Angeles, Lerach said. "I took the job because, like millions of people, I wanted to come to America," said Carmencita Abad, a Filipino native who spent six years on the island working for one of the companies. She said quality inspectors representing The Gap visited her factory, but conditions did not change after they left. Many earn less than $500 US a month, she added. In the fiscal year that ended in October, the 32 Saipan companies shipped an estimated $1 billion US worth of wholesale clothing duty-free to the U.S. mainland, saving more than $200 million US, Lerach said. Officials from the U.S. Labor Department and other agencies uncovered abuses in Saipan late last year, but attempts to impose reforms were met with resistance by the local bureaucrats and business owners who virtually rule the island, Lerach said.
