‘Garment workers keep arriving’

The closure of several garment factories on the island, which has already resulted in the displacement of thousands of guest workers, has not stopped the arrival of more alien workers for the industry, said the federal ombudsman office.

“There are still lots of new workers coming in every day. At the Ombudsman’s Office, we are right across the hall from the Social Security office. All the new workers have to get Social Security cards before they begin work…This past week, there was a large number coming in [for a garment factory]. …I also understand there are several hundred permits waiting to be printed at LIIDS for even more workers to come in,” said federal ombudsman Jim Benedetto in an e-mail interview.

The new workers, totaling some 100, were said to belong to Winners Corp.

Benedetto confirmed that some of the Concorde garment workers who joined the protest rally Friday were new hires.

“Some of the workers just arrived a month or two ago,” he said, noting that this may result in Concorde shouldering some of the responsibility for refunding the recruitment fees.

“If Concorde continued to recruit new workers from China after they knew they were going to significantly reduce their workforce, it is only right they share some of the financial burden for those recently recruited workers,” said Benedetto.

The ombudsman, who spoke to Concorde garment workers Friday at Fiesta Resort & Spa, said he met with seven representatives of the workers.

“The meeting was to inform them of their rights, and give them some idea of how the process would work, and to find out what issues they and their fellow co-workers have regarding the closure… They [also] raised issues about their tax rebates and reimbursement of the recruitment fees for those who had recently been recruited or renewed,” he said.

He said the recruiters, which are based in China, “are [already] obligated to refund to the workers a portion of the fees paid, depending on how early Concorde cancelled their contract.”

This means that those workers who were most recently recruited will receive more from the recruiters than those who were recruited some time ago.

He said this is in accordance with agreements signed in China between the workers and the recruiters.

Benedetto said his office can help the workers by asking CEDA “to intercede on behalf of the workers, and perhaps the recruiters will agree to an adjustment of terms in favor of the workers.”

He said the workers could not expect to get full reimbursements because “no worker should get 100 percent of their recruitment fee back, as the recruiter has provided them some service, or they wouldn’t be here,” said Benedetto.