American Sweatshops: A Look Into the Situation in The Northern Mariana Islands

Although the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, or CNMI, is a U.S. territory, it is excluded from the usual American labor and immigration laws and is not represented by the U.S. Congress; yet, according to an article in Ms Magazine, clothing sewn there is allowed to carry the "made in the USA" label. The CNMI’s garment manufacturers were clients of Jack Abramoff, the infamous lobbyist who, with the help of former House Majority leader Tom Delay, blocked all of the legislation that would have eliminated these exemptions. This has allowed garment manufacturers to import thousands of foreign female workers who work up to 20 hours a day in sweatshop conditions. The picture to the right shows a sweatshop in Saipan, one of the islands that comprise the CNMI. On February 8th the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources held a hearing on the labor and immigration conditions of the CNMI and, with the newly elected Democratic Congress, passed a proposal to increase the CNMI minimum wage to the federal level as part of the nationwide minimum wage increase legislation. This is a notable first step to improving the situation in the CNMI; however, it is not enough. The CNMI is a U.S. territory and it is unacceptable that these types of human rights violations have been allowed to remain for so long. This week I will join the discussion of this issue in two other blogs. The links can be found below along with my comments.


http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2007/02/08/mariana/index.html
Thank you for bringing attention to this issue. Sadly, because The Northern Mariana Islands are able to set their own immigration policies, women are being tricked into contracts of servitude in U.S. territory. I agree with you that raising the minimum wage is not going to solve everything but it is a positive first step. I am very pleased with the fact that under the new Democratic leadership in Congress, the labor and immigration reforms in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands are finally going somewhere. The Senate actually passed a bill federalizing the island's local laws six years ago but, as you know, special interest groups lobbied Tom Delay to stop the bill from becoming a law. For this reason it is critical that the CNMI be allowed a seat in Congress. Unfortunately they are currently not represented as Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands are. They need to have a say in the making of policies that affect them.



http://washingtonwoman.blogspot.com/2007/01/worn-in-usa.html
The U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources finally held a hearing on February 8 regarding the current situation in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The hearing focused on whether the CNMI should be brought under U.S. labor and immigration law enforcement jurisdiction. Fortunately labor reform in the CNMI is heading in the right direction. The proposal to increase the minimum wage to the federal level passed with ease as part of the nationwide minimum wage increase legislation. I truly hope that this is only the beginning of more good things to come. Unfortunately, a lot more still needs to be done. David B. Cohen, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Insular Affairs, said that “Federalizing the CNMI's immigration system needs to be done in a manner that would not cause needless economic or fiscal harm.” Fifty percent of the residents there are foreign employees and that fact must be taken into account when reforming the immigration laws. We certainly do not want to harm the individuals we intended to help. It must also be considered that the people there currently have no way to change policies that may be detrimental to them because they are not represented in the U.S. Congress. Consequently, they turn to hiring lobbyists, and as we have seen, lobbyists are not representing the interests of these people.