Sweatshops in U.S. Territory (N. Marianas Islands/Abramoff)

[Up2Late]

(I hope this is an O.K. article to post here, I don't think the full text is on-line, but the interview with the Ms. Magazine authors just aired and is now on line. It sounds like a lot of previously unreported info in the article).

Sweatshops in U.S. Territory

Audio for this story... (at link above)

Fresh Air from WHYY, May 16, 2006 · While the Northern Marianas Islands are a U.S. territory, they are exempt from the usual American laws regulating minimum wage, tariffs, quotas and immigration. Yet clothing sewn in the sweatshops bears the "made in the USA" label. To further complicate matters, the Marianas were a client of Jack Abramoff, who, with the help of Tom Delay, blocked legislation that would have eliminated these exemptions.

Ms. magazine reporter Rebecca Clarren and executive editor Katherine Spillar discuss the latest issue's cover article about the sweatshops of the Northern Mariana Islands.

Paradise Lost

Greed, Sex Slavery, Forced Abortions and Right-Wing Moralists

by Rebecca Clarren
photos by Martin Von Krogh

That expensive blouse you’re wearing? It may have been sewn by a Filipina garment worker laboring in a factory owned by a Hong Kong mogul on a western Pacific island. The Northern Mariana Islands, a territory of the United States, offers the possibility of an American label — Made in Saipan (USA), Made in Northern Mariana Islands (USA), or simply Made in USA — to garment manufacturers, and throws in a unique exemption from U.S. minimum-wage and immigration laws.

Anti-sweatshop leaders and some members of Congress have long sought to increase wages and protect the islands’ garment workers, most of whom are women, from what amounts to indentured servitude. But their efforts were repeatedly stalled in Congress. And who was among the biggest opponents of reform? None other than the notorious lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whose tentacles reached deep into House Republican leadership. And who was one of the loudest congressional cheerleaders against reform? Tom DeLay, who praised the islands as “a petri dish of capitalism.”

In the midst of what could be the largest congressional scandal in history, Ms. sent an investigative team to the Northern Marianas to examine firsthand the consequences of these lobbying efforts and congressional inaction on real women’s lives. Plus, we wanted to track down reports of forced abortions on the islands. Could it be that virulent opponents of abortion, such as DeLay, were contributing to conditions where desperate pregnant workers had no choice but to have an abortion? Here is our report. <http://www.msmagazine.com/spring2006/paradise.asp>

(Unfortunately, I don't think the full report is on line, Yes guys, we'll have to go buy a copy of Ms. Magazine)

[DBoon]

1. isn't a petri dish where disease-causing bacteria are grown?

if so, a good metaphor.

[hootinholler]

9. There are good bacteria too, but

I'll give you the metaphor.

Many brewers keep petris of yeast.

-Hoot

[rodeodance]

2. I hope the blogs link/post this everywhere

[rodeodance]

3. nominate.

[sandnsea]

4. Glad they're finally writing this

Not unreported at all actually, I know a lot of DUers have been writing on this for a long long time. In fact, it looks awfully similar to what I wrote a year ago. The scariest part is that this is the Mexico "guest worker" model that the Bushies want to implement. That's why we have to fight for path to citizenship, so they don't turn our country into a legal sweatshop.

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/?p=36

[theHandpuppet]

5. 100 members of Congress successfully bribed to support slavery

There really are no words descriptive enough to tell you just how I feel about that human slime Jack Abramoff and the dirtbag members of our own U.S. Congress who accepted bribes to squash the business of human slavery in the Marianas!

:grr:

[hootinholler]

12. I wonder what * got for killing the investigation? n/t

[sadiesworld]

6. You can bet your ass that they'll bring this garbage to the mainland

if given half a chance. The guest worker program currently being debated in the senate is the first step. Corporate rat bastards.

[Up2Late]

7. It kind of makes you wonder if Bush is playing Good Cop to the extreme RWs

...bad cop to make his "guest worker" program sound like a reasonable alternative. :mad:

[YankeyMCC]

8. Every time Shrub

mentions "guest worker" programs here's the model he wants to use. It's essentially indentured servitude.

[Up2Late]

10. It's already happening with the current Work Visa programs...

Check out this article I found while researching the Qwest story.

See, the deal with the H-1B Visa is, the Corporation brings them over, but they are under no obligation to give the H-1B worker a raise or any benefits, and if they quit, they lose their Visa, becoming illegal and/or are just deported.

Tech workers say H-1B visa program unfair

The Denver Business Journal -

May 3, 2002

by Amy Bryer
Denver Business Journal

High-tech workers in Colorado and throughout the country are beginning to cry foul over an immigration program they say is taking away jobs from American citizens. Current and former employees of Qwest Communications International Inc. have become increasingly critical of the H-1B visa program they say keeps foreign workers employed in tech jobs while American workers are laid off by the thousands.

Although some tech workers say American corporations are giving away jobs to cheaper foreign labor, others say it's a sign of a larger trend to move the American software and telecommunications industries overseas. American corporations claim they need college-educated foreign workers to fill specialized jobs that cannot be filled by American workers.

The practice of hiring foreign workers with H-1B visas was common among American tech companies in the late 1990s, when they told Congress they needed to fill jobs especially surrounding the Y2K problem. Congress increased the limit of visas awarded to 195,000 a year in 1998.

Now, it's estimated there are 710,000 foreign workers holding H-1B visas in the United States, according to Georgetown University scholars. Meanwhile, it's been estimated about 500,000 high-tech workers around the country were laid off during the economic slowdown in the industry.

"The number is way too high," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonprofit think tank supported financially by both liberal and conservative foundations. "It's an indentured labor program that makes foreign workers more attractive than American workers...."

(more at link)

<http://denver.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2002/05/06/story1.html>

[Chulanowa]

11. Bingo

I've actually managed to deconvert soem right-wing friends using these facts of "worker programs" Unfortunately I had to stoop kind of liw to do it.

Me: "Remember those riots in Paris?"
Them: "With the muslims setting things on fire? Yeah"
Me: "Not muslims. Guest workers who were getting screwed by a program identical to what your President wants to institute here"
Them: *Slackjawed silence*
Me: "It creates perfect conditions for riots, no mater who or what the workers are. You want riots here?
Them: ...No...:
Me: "Well, then"

Gotta know how to herd them, is all.

[slipslidingaway]

13. Thanks and kick, another article below.

snip>>

David Swanson: Made By Slaves, Backed by Congress
Monday, 8 May 2006, 11:32 am
Opinion: David Swanson

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0605/S00111.htm

"Over the past decade, 29 bills in Congress have sought to apply a minimum wage standard and/or immigration law to the Mariana Islands or to deny use of "Made in USA" to items produced there. Every one of these bills has failed. Some have won support in the Senate but been blocked by the House Resources Committee. Others have won the support of a majority of House Members but still been killed in that same committee.

snip

There are three bills in the House and Senate right now that would apply the U.S. minimum wage to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Ms. recommends contacting the chair and ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Education and Workforce and the Senate Committee on Finance. They are:

Rep. McKeon www.house.gov/writerep
Rep. Miller [e-mail]
Sen. Grassley http://grassley.senate.gov/webform.htm
Sen. Baucus http://baucus.senate.gov/contact/emailForm.cfm?subj=issue

[Up2Late]

14. Thanks for that, I find it almost amazing that none of the Major...

...newspapers or Magazines have bother to follow this part of the story up. Almost.

I wonder if someone high up controls access (Visas) to these islands or something, maybe this nearly mainstream report and article will get this situation a bit more attention.

We can always hope.

[slipslidingaway]

15. You're welcome and thanks for posting. Amazing how the smaller

news organizations have investigative reporters :-( Good job connecting this to what is currently taking place in our nation.

[rman]

16. and kick