Saipan Sweatshop Lawsuit Ends with Important Ga



Saipan Sweatshop Lawsuit Ends with Important Gains

Thursday, 01 January 2004 14:31

|(More on The Saipan workers' lawsuit) |

|Saipan Sweatshop Lawsuit Ends with Important Gains for Workers and Lessons for Activists |

|January 8, 2004 |

|By Nikki F. Bas, Sweatshop Watch; Medea Benjamin, Global Exchange; Joannie C. Chang, Asian Law Caucus |

|This month, the last of three lawsuits over sweatshop conditions on the U.S. island of Saipan came to a close. Saipan garment workers voluntarily dismissed their |

|class action lawsuit against Levi-Strauss and Company, the only retailer to refuse to contribute to a settlement fund for the workers. Recognizing that they had |

|already won a landmark $20 million settlement with 26 other U.S. retailers and 23 Saipan garment factories, the workers and labor advocates involved in the lawsuit|

|declared victory. Back payments for up to 30,000 Saipan workers, including those who sewed Levi's, are being distributed and an independent monitoring program of |

|Saipan garment factories, including those that produced Levi's, has begun. |

|During the course of the five-year litigation, many important gains were made for Saipan's garment workers. At the same time, anti-sweatshop activists tested new |

|legal strategies and campaigned against the world's biggest retailers. While the settlement is viewed as a significant victory, several challenges emerged, which |

|lend valuable lessons for future anti-sweatshop campaigns. |

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|Background |

|Five years ago, Sweatshop Watch, Global Exchange, Asian Law Caucus, Unite, and Saipan garment workers filed three separate lawsuits against dozens of big-name |

|retailers and Saipan garment factories alleging violations of U.S. labor laws and international human rights standards. |

|Saipan is the largest of a chain of fourteen islands in the Pacific Ocean known as the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. It is home to a $1 |

|billion garment industry, with about 30 garment factories employing more than 10,000 workers, almost all young women from China, the Philippines, Thailand, |

|Vietnam, Bangladesh and other Asian countries. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit alleged that these workers live and toil in deplorable conditions, working up to 12 hours |

|a day, seven days a week, and earning $3.05 an hour or less, often without overtime pay. With promises of high pay and quality work in the U.S., workers agreed to |

|repay recruitment fees of thousands of dollars. Many workers also claimed that they signed "shadow contracts" waiving basic human rights, including the freedom to |

|join unions, attend religious services, quit or marry. These circumstances, plaintiffs contended, trap Saipan garment workers in a state of indentured servitude. |

|The retailers were also charged with misleading advertising by, among other things, using the "Made in the U.S.A" label and promoting their goods as |

|sweatshop-free. |

|By the Fall of 2002, 26 retailers and 23 Saipan garment factories settled the lawsuit, leaving Levi's as the only hold-out. A federal judge approved the settlement|

|in April 2003. The settling retailers include: |

|Abercrombie & Fitch, Brooks Brothers, Brylane L.P., Calvin Klein Inc., Cutter & Buck Inc., Donna Karan International, Dress Barn, Gap Inc. (Banana Republic, Old |

|Navy), Gymboree Corp., J.C. Penney Company Inc., J. Crew Group Inc, Jones Apparel Group, Lane Bryant Inc., The Limited Inc., Liz Claiborne Inc., May Department |

|Stores Company, Nordstrom Inc., Oshkosh B'Gosh Inc., Phillips-Van Heusen, Polo Ralph Lauren, Sears Roebuck and Company, Talbots Inc., Target Corp. (Target, |

|Mervyn's, Marshall Fields, Dayton-Hudson), Tommy Hilfiger USA Inc., Warnaco Inc. and Woolrich, Inc. |

|Improvements for Saipan's Garment Workers |

|The Saipan lawsuit is ground-breaking in many ways. Past attempts to clean up sweatshop conditions on the island failed. Legislative efforts by Democratic members |

|of the U.S. Congress have been blocked by Republican members, and a union organizing drive fell short by a few votes. However, the Saipan lawsuit brought new legal|

|challenges to sweatshop abusers and generated worldwide public and media attention. This new spotlight on Saipan's garment industry prompted the companies, fearful|

|of media exposés, to improve conditions. It also pushed the U.S. government to step up its efforts to curb labor abuses on Saipan. |

|In January 1999, the lawsuits were announced with great fanfare at a Washington, DC press conference where Chie Abad, a former Saipan garment worker from the |

|Philippines, appeared on behalf of the workers. Soon, the companies began to "clean up their act" in Saipan. Dormitories were improved, clean drinking water and |

|decent food were provided, overtime started to be paid, and supervisors started to treat the workers better. The lawsuit and the ensuing media spotlight, together |

|with campaigning by Global Exchange, Sweatshop Watch and other anti-sweatshop groups, forced the companies to make major changes for the first time in the 20 year |

|history of Saipan's garment industry. |

|The $20 million settlement is the largest award to date in an international human rights case. Workers will receive as much as $4,000 in back wages, nearly a |

|year's pay. Over 15,000 of the eligible 30,000 workers have come forward. |

|The code of conduct agreed to by the settling companies ends some of the worst sweatshop abuses. Exorbitant recruitment fees of up to $7,000, which trapped workers|

|in involuntary servitude, are limited so that only certain necessary expenses, such as transportation to Saipan, are allowed. Shadow contracts which prohibit |

|workers from practicing their religions, dating, and joining unions are not tolerated. Factory owners are prohibited from confiscating workers' passports, |

|preventing them from leaving their living quarters, and physically or sexually abusing workers. Workers cannot be forced to work "off the clock" or "volunteer" |

|hours. They must be paid the minimum wage and time and a half for work beyond 40 hours. Workers can file complaints, with protection from retaliation. There is now|

|a repatriation fund so that workers who want to return to their home countries are eligible for up to $3,000 in relocation fees. |

|Increased public attention to sweatshops on Saipan has also led to greater enforcement of labor laws by the U.S. government. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has|

|levied millions of dollars in fines against Saipan factories for wage and hour and health and safety violations. For example, in April 2002, the DOL announced that|

|Express Manufacturing, Inc. would pay $224,000 in back wages owed to 258 employees to settle charges filed by the DOL that the company violated the overtime |

|provisions of the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). |

|A related benefit to garment workers in Saipan and the world over, is the tremendous public education the lawsuit and campaign generated. All of the groups |

|involved in the lawsuit have used the case to educate the public about sweatshop conditions. In addition, Chie Abad has been traveling around the U.S. non-stop for|

|the past three years talking about sweatshop working conditions. She is perhaps the only foreign garment worker who has devoted herself, with the help of Global |

|Exchange, to full-time public education about the garment industry. She has visited hundreds of high schools, colleges and places of worship to make people aware |

|of the problems workers face and to pressure companies for change. Chie's work alone has made a major contribution to the anti-sweatshop movement. |

|The Saipan case is part of a growing trend of using litigation to hold corporations accountable for their labor and environmental abuses. Using obscure laws such |

|as the federal Alien Tort Claims Act and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, as well as California's false advertising laws, the Saipan case |

|and others are testing new legal ground in today's global economy. At first, the retailers named in the case refused responsibility for the conditions in the |

|factories that make their goods. The settlement creates a direct link between the retailers and the workers who sewed their clothes. It sends a powerful message |

|and will hopefully deter other multinational corporations from using exploitative labor in the U.S. and abroad. |

|Lessons learned |

|Litigation is a long and complex process, which should not be taken on without careful consideration. It requires close communication with the attorneys in order |

|to monitor frequent and detailed developments, as well as coordination with the workers involved. Such communication is critical to the outcome of the litigation |

|as negotiations of key issues and important decisions should be made with full participation of the plaintiffs. The limited resources of the organizational |

|plaintiffs, particularly those without attorneys on staff, limited our ability to be intimately involved in the complexities of the case, and communication with |

|the attorneys in such a complicated case was a big challenge. |

|Litigation is most successful with an accompanying public campaign. When the lawsuit was announced in January 1999, Global Exchange and Sweatshop Watch worked |

|together to launch a national campaign against the Gap, the largest clothing producer on Saipan. At the beginning of the campaign, we mobilized activists in dozens|

|of cities around the country and later abroad, holding protests at Gap stores on the first Saturday of every month. As the case dragged on for several years, it |

|became harder to muster the resources for a sustained campaign. In the end, the tapering off of public actions against the retailers weakened our ability to demand|

|an even larger settlement and a stronger monitoring program. |

|Settlements, unlike verdicts or court orders, allow each side to claim victory. The settling companies have spun their media machines to claim they are admitting |

|no wrongdoing by settling the case. Levi's, the only non-settling company, states "the dismissal of this lawsuit confirms that there was no substance to the |

|claims." However, Levi's fails to admit that the dismissal was not ordered by a judge and there was no ruling on the merits of the case. Saipan workers volunteered|

|to dismiss the case, given the significant settlement they achieved from the other companies. |

|The Saipan settlement involves the first legally mandated independent monitoring program. In negotiating the settlement, the organizations involved faced the |

|monumental challenge that no precedent exists. The monitoring program the groups envisioned, which would build capacity among Saipan garment workers to monitor |

|their own workplaces, did not exist, nor did an agency with the experience and capacity to create such a program. Moreover, there are no non-governmental agencies |

|on Saipan who could educate or organize the workers around labor rights issues. The companies balked at the idea of creating such a program from scratch and |

|insisted an existing monitoring agency be hired. After lengthy negotiations, the organizational plaintiffs agreed to create an oversight board of three retired |

|judges to oversee the monitoring program. The organizations choose one judge, the companies chose another, and the two judges chose the third. All parties also |

|agreed to ask the International Labor Organization (ILO) to conduct the actual monitoring. As a tri-partite organization of government, labor and business, it was |

|amenable to all involved, and it has been conducting monitoring of garment factories in Cambodia as part of the U.S.-Cambodia free trade agreement. However, |

|shortly before Federal Judge Alex Munson was scheduled to rule on the final settlement, the Bush Administration stunned the Marianas Islands Governor by rejecting |

|his request to allow the ILO to conduct the monitoring program on Saipan and insisting that a private monitor be selected. |

|Further negotiations stalled when the anti-sweatshop organizations in the lawsuit could not agree with the companies on a single monitor. This forced each party to|

|select two monitors, each to be approved by the Oversight Board who wanted to work with existing monitoring agencies with past experience. Clearly, that limited |

|the choices of monitors who could carry out the plaintiffs' vision of empowering workers through the monitoring process. The anti-sweatshop organizations proposed |

|Verité, arguably the most independent and experienced in labor rights of existing monitors (excluding the Workers Rights Consortium, which only monitors university|

|licensees). The factories chose Global Social Compliance, the controversial Price Waterhouse Cooper social auditing spin off, which has been criticized for using |

|ill-trained accountants for cursory inspections of factories. |

|As the monitoring program began in late 2003, more challenges arose. Originally, $4 million had been set aside for the 4-year monitoring program, but that amount |

|decreased as some of the factories declared bankruptcy. The Oversight Board began to set up its operations on Saipan, with office expenses and hefty salaries for |

|the three judges leaving even less for the monitoring. |

|The organizations in the lawsuit envisioned the Saipan monitoring program as an experiment, and still believe that it can yield useful lessons for improving |

|conditions in garment factories. The code of conduct still emphasizes worker education and protection of workers from retaliation so that they can assert their |

|rights by filing complaints. Reports on the program will be made public. |

|In reflecting on the Saipan lawsuit, the outcome is a significant victory for garment workers. Their living and working conditions have and are being improved. For|

|the larger anti-sweatshop movement, the organizations involved in the case experimented with some new strategies and made progress in the struggle for workers' |

|rights. We faced new and unexpected challenges by combining a complex legal strategy with a campaign that needed far more resources than we had, but we learned |

|some valuable lessons along the way which we hope will help build the movement for workers' rights. |

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