IDENTURED SERVITUDE MADE IN USA

By Rob Ham

When shopping at the local “Big Box” store it is always nice to come across a garment or linen rocking the label “Made In America.”

“At last,” one might think as they purchase the item secure in the knowledge that it was made in a U.S. factory by a U.S. worker making the minimum wage, protected, albeit less and less these days, by U.S. labor laws. For many it gives them a warm and fuzzy feeling knowing they are supporting the economy and doing their bit to keep manufacturing jobs in the good old U.S.A.

After they get through a couple of choruses of “God Bless America,” perhaps they should give this notion some thought: that commodity may have been produced by an indentured Chinese or Bangladeshi laborer working for pennies in a foreign-owned sweatshop that has no obligation to pay U.S. import duties, or obey American labor laws (including minimum wage) yet can still use the label “Made In U.S.A.” Why? Because the factory where the commodity was produced is in the Northern Marianas Islands.

The Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI) is a group of islands about 3,500 miles from Hawaii. First conquered by Spain in 1688, the islands were sold to Germany in the nineteenth century. In 1919, Japan invaded and was subsequently awarded a “mandate” by the League of Nations.

The islanders, unhappy with Japanese rule, by-and-large collaborated with American forces during World War II. After a series of bloody battles the Marines seized the Northern Marianas Islands as well as other strategically important gems, such as Guam.

The United States administered CNMI as a “trust” until a plebiscite in 1975, when residents elected to become a US territory. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that much like things are done in the rest of the Empire, those elections were the result of collaboration between mainland and island ruling class interests.

Technically the Northern Marians are U.S. soil, but their territorial status allows them to create their own labor law and immigration regulations. The minimum wage there is currently $3.15 per hour. Local law also permits a “Guest Worker” program where laborers can be imported and work indefinitely without the opportunity to even begin the process of acquiring U.S. citizenship.

Much like the United States, immigrant workers without papers in CNMI are generally poor, exploited and cowed into silence by fear of deportation.

Tariff and tax advantages of the “Made in U.S.A.” label make it desirable for foreign companies (mostly from Asia) to set up manufacturing operations on Saipan and other locations within the territory. The Republican-led government conducts itself with great sympathy toward these firms. Workers live in company dormitories under squalid conditions, and are virtually cut off from the rest of the island’s inhabitants. Rape and forced prostitution are commonplace, as are cases where women workers who are forced to have abortions, according to Rebecca Clarren reporting in MS Magazine.

Immigrant Chinese, Pilipino and Bangladeshi workers must pay their employers for transportation and living expenses, and are not allowed to leave their jobs until they do, according to Clarren.

Workers pay a recruiter as much as $7,000 dollars to get a job and are then required to pay for room and board once they arrive on the island, Clarren reports. Most must work 12-hour days seven days a week, surviving in the most desperate conditions, immigrants getting the worst of it, paid barely half of what the minimum wage is in the United States.

It took a senator from Alaska to write a bill aimed at extending U.S. labor law protection to workers living in the CNMI. Former Sen. Frank Murkowski wrote such a bill only to have Tom Delay run interference for garment manufacturers operating in the island territory, according to Mark Shields, a reporter for CNN.

Delay and his pal Jack Abramoff successfully blocked any Congressional attempts at reform or oversight, according to James Park writing for the AFL-CIO Web log. Delay traveled to CNMI and praised the territory’s governor at a New Years Eve celebration on Saipan in 1998. He reportedly said:

“You are a shining light for what is happening in the Republican Party and you represent everything that is good about what we are trying to do in America leading the world in the free market system.”

Abramoff is now a convicted felon and Delay has resigned from office in disgrace, awaiting prosecution. HR 2 --The Fair Minimum Wage Act Of 2007 -- passed through the House of Representatives and is on its way to the Senate. Thanks to the efforts of Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), the bill includes an increase in the minimum wage for CNMI workers.

CNMI immigration law must be reformed so that a state of indentured servitude does not exist in the territories. Products from CNMI must be banned from bearing a “Made In U.S.A.” label until the territory lives up to the responsibilities inherent in using that tag.

If the byproducts of Delay’s unfettered “Free Market System” are rape, indentured servitude and exploitation, maybe we should ask: How much human misery is a low-cost designer blouse worth?