Sweatshops Essay Research Paper The US General

Sweatshops Essay, Research Paper

The US General Accounting Office defines a sweatshop as a business that regularly

violates wage, child labor, health and/or safety laws. While sweatshop abuses in the

garment industry have been an issue of public concern for decades, few people know

about the sweatshops of the booming electronics industry. Behind the gleaming

facade of the high tech industry are thousands of low-paid, mostly immigrant women,

who assemble the nuts and bolts of our computers using hundreds of toxic

chemicals.

January 14, 1999

The San Francisco Chronicle

William Carlsen, Staff Writer

Thousands of Asian women are forced to work under slavery-like conditions on the U.S.

commonwealth island of Saipan making clothing that top garment retailers are selling for huge

profits, according to a sweeping lawsuit filed yesterday in San Francisco.

In a series of suits filed in state and federal court, human rights groups claim that foreign

clothing firms are passing off the apparel as ”Made in the USA.” Because of Saipan’s

commonwealth status, retailers have avoided more than $200 million in tariffs.

Lawyers filing the suits yesterday described inhumane working and living conditions on the

island, including long hours of work at sub- minimum wages, poor ventilation in hotbox factories,

physical abuse — including forced abortions — and concentration-camp rat-infested living

conditions, complete with guarded barb-wire compounds.

The three suits, filed in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Saipan, name as defendants the Gap,

Nordstrom, Tommy Hilfiger, May Co., Sears, Wal-Mart and most of the big names in clothing

and retail, as well as a number of apparel manufacturers and contractors.

The class-action suits, which seek $1 billion in lost wages and damages, were brought on behalf

of 25,000 so-called ”guest workers,” mostly Asian women, and they allege violations of labor,

racketeering, human rights and business laws.

”To allow such squalid conditions to persist on American soil is both patently unlawful and

morally reprehensible,” said Al Meyerhoff, one of the lead attorneys.

Apparel companies and retailers contacted yesterday denied that their subcontractors violate any

laws. They said they have conducted inspections and would stop doing business with vendors

they believed were in violation of the law.

Nordstrom, for example, said it inspected two facilities in Saipan in October and did not find

violations.

”There was no cause for concern at that time,” said Brooke White, a spokeswoman for the

company. ”We make announced and unannounced inspections and look at working conditions,

wages, the ages and numbers of workers and the safety of the facilities and operations.”

”We realize that this is in conflict with the allegations in the lawsuits, and we are eager to get a

copy of the suits so we can continue our investigation.”

Rhonda West, a spokeswoman for the May Department Store Co., said the company takes the

allegations ”very seriously, and we’ll investigate fully to ascertain the facts.” But, she added, the

company insists that its suppliers and vendors fully comply with applicable wage and labor laws.

The Gap, which is based in San Francisco, issued a statement saying the company was ”deeply

concerned about the allegations.”

”Gap Inc. does not tolerate this type of conduct in the factories where we do business,” the

company said, noting that it monitors ”conditions to ensure that workers are treated with dignity

and respect.”

Saipan, one of chain of western Pacific islands known as the Northern Marianas, came under

U.S. control after World War II. In 1975, the islands gained U.S. commonwealth status.

Yesterday’s legal action stems from exemptions from minimum wage and immigration laws that

the islands negotiated with the United States at the time.

In recent years, aware of lax laws and regulations, Asian-based companies have flocked to

Saipan, the commonwealth’s main island, to set up dozens of apparel factories.

Because of their commonwealth status, the islands enjoy favorable U.S. tariff and duty

protections.

This has permitted companies in Saipan to ship their products to the mainland without paying

duties, according to yesterday’s suits, and allows them to label the goods ”Made in the USA,” or

”Made in the Northern Mariana Islands, USA.”

Lawyers representing the island’s garment workers called Saipan ”America’s worst sweatshop”

yesterday.

They said thousands of the workers, mostly women brought from China, the Philippines,

Bangladesh and Thailand, work and live like indentured slaves.

Lured with the promise of high wages and U.S. working conditions, they are instead often forced

to work seven-day weeks, 12 hours a day, with no overtime, sometimes without pay or at pay

below the U.S. minimum wage, the attorneys said.

”Many live in a room with up to seven othe

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