Protests hit sweatshops in U.S. colony Saipan
By Greg
Butterfield
Actions were held in 10 cities May 1 by a coalition of labor
and human-rights groups to protest sweatshops on the U.S.-ruled
Pacific island of Saipan. Saipan, part of the U.S. Commonwealth
of Northern Mariana, is a colony.
Protesters focused their attention on clothing retailer The
Gap, which they called the number-one abuser of sweatshop
workers there.
Gap stores were targeted in New York, San Francisco, Boston,
Chicago, Seattle, Salem, Ore., Tucson, Ariz., Sacramento, Santa
Barbara and San Luis Obispo, Calif.
Gap is one of 18 U.S. retail chains named in a $1 billion
federal lawsuit filed last January over conditions in Saipan.
Others include Target, Wal-Mart, Tommy Hilfiger and J.
Crew.
According to an April 29 statement from the United Food and
Commercial Workers union, the suit was "Filed on behalf of more
than 50,000 unnamed female workers from China, the Philippines,
Bangladesh and Thailand who moved to Saipan for the promise of
good jobs... Retail giants use forced labor in their Saipan
garment facilities and subject workers to unusually harsh
treatment with sub-minimum wages, 12-hour work days, seven days
a week and unpaid overtime. ...
"The suit also charges that workers toil in unsanitary
conditions and many are forced to sign `shadow contracts' that
waive the freedom to date or marry and often forbid pregnancy
to the point of forced abortions. Workers are housed in
prison-like shanty towns, surrounded by guards and barbed
wire," says the UFCW.
Like much of the anti-sweatshop movement, the organizers of
the May 1 actions had mixed messages. UFCW and Global Exchange,
for example, called for Saipan's minimum wage to be raised from
$3.05. At the same time, both groups criticized "lax
immigration laws" as part of the problem in Saipan and urged
that restrictive and racist U.S. laws be extended to the
island.
A better approach is to focus on building solidarity between
U.S.-born, native Saipan and immigrant workers. Others who
labor under sweatshop-type conditions in the U.S.--such as
workfare workers and prisoners--also need to be brought into
the movement.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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