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“WAGE AND LABOR RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN THE AMERICAN TERRITORIES” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E548 on April 5, 2001.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
WAGE AND LABOR RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN THE AMERICAN TERRITORIES
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HON. GEORGE MILLER
of california
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, April 4, 2001
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak against the ongoing wage and labor rights violations in factories operating in some of our American territories, and I ask that my colleagues join me in creating reforms that will finally ensure that all workplaces that operate under the American flag do so in compliance with federal law. I have been involved for a number of years in an effort to reduce the well-documented exploitation of temporary foreign workers, particularly Asian women, in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (US/CNMI). In the past few months, I have been troubled to leam that the practice of exploiting temporary workers has now spread to American Samoa.
According to a recent Department of Labor investigation, the Daewoosa factory in the American Samoa employed 251 Vietnamese ``guest workers''--more than 90 percent of them women--for nearly two years under conditions of indentured servitude. These workers took on a debt of up to $8,000 dollars each in order to qualify for what they believed would be good jobs in America, but instead they were constantly paid less than the Samoan minimum wage of only $2.60 per hour. Sometimes the workers of the Daewoosa factory were not paid at all. Many workers also faced verbal, physical and sexual abuse, including a severe beating that caused one young woman to lose an eye. As a result of these violations, Daewoosa owner Kil Soo Lee now faces charges of forced labor in federal court.
While I applaud the Federal Government for prosecuting this particular violator of labor laws, I believe we must take steps to ensure that these injustices never happen again. I urge my colleagues to read the following article from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and consider whether they would ever tolerate such conditions and exploitation in their own districts. I also invite my colleagues to join me in cosponsoiing legislation to bring all of the U.S. territories into compliance with the federal laws that protect workers throughout the United States.
Hawaii Should Lead Fight To End Abuse of Workers in U.S. Territories
The issue: Allegations that Asian workers were forced to work at an American Samoan garment sweatshop under inhuman conditions have resulted in federal charges here.
Human rights and labor abuses uncovered on the Northern Marianas island of Saipan three years ago embarrassed U.S. garment manufacturers, resulting in lawsuits and federal legislation targeted for the islands north of Guam. Sweatshop conditions as bad if not worse in American Samoa have prompted criminal charges in federal court.
The two cases suggest that U.S. territories in the Pacific have been vulnerable to such abuses far more than had been assumed. Reform legislation that failed in the last Congress should be rejuvenated and broadened to include all U.S. possessions.
About 14,000 workers, mostly young women, from China, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Thailand were lured by promises of good wages to pay fees of up to $10,000 to enter the labor force in the Northern Marianas. In 1998, federal lawsuits accused 32 contractors on Saipan of beatings, forced abortions and rat-infested quarters in essentially a prison environment surrounded by barbed-wire and armed guards.
Major clothing retailers in the United States that had bought garments sewn on Saipan settled lawsuits by agreeing to establish a $1.25 million fund to finance monitoring, compensate workers and create a public education program.
Senator Akaka last year won Senate approval of a bill to extend U.S. immigration and minimum-wage laws to the Marianas and allow ``Made in the USA'' labels only on garments on which more than half the work had been done by American citizens. The measure died in the House.
More recently, a Labor Department investigation has uncovered similar abuses in American Samoa, with work and living conditions so horrid that some garment workers, mostly women from Vietnam, looked like ``walking skeletons.''
Similar to the situation on Saipan, up to 250 workers had borrowed $2,000 to $7,000 each to acquire their jobs and fly from Vietnam or China to Saipan. Investigators found frequent violations of the Samoan minimum wage ($2.60 an hour) and numerous abuses, including the beating of workers and withholding of meals as a form of punishment.
Daewoosa, a Korean-owned clothing manufacturer that had made apparel for J.C. Penney Co., closed the plant in January. A judge in Samoa placed Daewoosa under receivership after it failed to pay $600,000 in back wages and fines resulting from the Labor Department investigation.
Penney had canceled contracts with the factory immediately after learning of the abuses. Daewoosa owner Kil Soo Lee now faces charges of involuntary servitude and forced labor in federal court in Honolulu.
While the semiautonomous status of U.S. territories in the Pacific may vary, the conditions that were found on Saipan and Samoa should be condoned on none of them. As leaders of the U.S. community in the Pacific, Hawaii's congressional delegation should promote legislation to end these human-rights abuses.
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