Dear Colleague:

We are asking you to cosponsor legislation to bring the US Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (US/CNMI) in compliance with federal law in order to end well documented labor and human rights abuses in that territory.

The US/CNMI has aggressively developed an economy based on the importation of tens of thousands of desperately poor foreign workers from Asia who pay between $3,000 - $7,000 for what they are told are good jobs in "America". The workers arrive in the capital of Saipan and are corralled into garment factory barracks owned mostly by Peoples Republic of China and Korean entities. Surrounded by barbed wire, the workers are forced to toil as much as 12 hours a day at subminimum wages under often dangerous and unsafe conditions. Many times the living conditions are worse than the working conditions - workers cramped into overcrowded bedrooms, subjected to unsafe or unavailable water supplies, little food, and restricted movement outside the barracks. Many Chinese workers are even forced to sign contracts relinquishing their rights to free speech or to practice religion while in the U.S.A.

Yet the garments manufactured under such conditions in the US/CNMI -- in foreign owned factories with foreign labor and foreign fabric -- contain the "Made in USA" label and enter the states both quota and duty free. This scheme to subvert US trade law is growing by an astonishing 45% a year. In 1998, over $1 billion worth of garments came to the states, depriving the US Treasury of over $200 million in duty fees and, in the words of the Federal - CNMI Initiative on Labor, Immigration, and Law Enforcement, causing "serious damage to the United States mainland apparel industry's employment and profits".

Despite extensive reports and condemnations of working and living conditions for foreign workers in the US/CNMI -- by the Departments of Labor-Interior-Justice, the INS, the Resource Committee Democrats, and national magazines, newspapers and TV -- the local government continues to rely on a caste system in which disenfranchised foreign workers hold 91% of all private sector jobs for subminimum wages and over 56% of local residents work for the government where starting salaries are more than seven times that of the private sector.

Congress cannot stand by and allow such abuses, and worse, to flourish on American soil. And yet that is precisely what is happening. Similar reform legislation was introduced in the 105th Congress and despite repeated entreaties, could not even secure a hearing in the Resources Committee.

So we ask for your co-sponsorship to help send a strong message that the Congress will not allow these conditions, and this attack on domestic textile workers and businesses, to continue without even a hearing. Our legislation requires that the Americans living in the US/CNMI live by the same laws that your constituents live by. It extends US immigration and minimum wage law to the US/CNMI and includes a provision to preserve the integrity of the "Made in USA" label by requiring that it only be allowed in garments made in compliance of all US labor practices. In addition, the legislation will assure that U.S. Customs agents have the authority to board and inspect ships in US/CNMI waters to address the numerous allegations of illegal transhipment of fully completed garments from Asia. Finally, the legislation will no longer allow products made predominantly by foreign workers with foreign fabric to enjoy the quota and duty waiver.

Please call Joe Novotny at 5-6065 or Marie Howard at 6-2311 today if you have any questions and to be an original cosponsor this important legislation.

Sincerely,

GEORGE MILLER
7th District, California

JOHN SPRATT
5th District, South Carolina