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‘La Mode workers entitled to back wages and transfer’
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Posted on Apr 11 2005
The Department of Labor has issued an order declaring that former workers of the La Mode garment factory are entitled to back wages, as well as transfer relief or repatriation.
Attorney general Pamela Brown yesterday said that her office, through assistant attorney general Kevin Lynch, has been working to collect on the workers’ monetary claims against their employer.
“There was an order actually entered regarding the workers for back wages and transfer relief and repatriation,” Brown said. “We’re working on getting that money and collecting that money now for the workers.”
La Mode, which reportedly decided to cease business operations as early as February, used to have some 302 workers, according to Lynch. Claims of unpaid wages totaled some $342,000, with workers claiming to have not gotten at least three paychecks, Lynch said.
The grant of transfer relief to displaced workers gives them the opportunity to seek new employers within 45 days. Those who prefer not to seek new employers are entitled to repatriation to their home countries, the costs of which should be charged to La Mode, their last employer on record.
Brown said an April 28 hearing set by the Labor Department would allow the workers to register with appropriate government agencies, in connection with its administrative order.
On Monday last week, some 70 La Mode workers assembled at the Governor’s Office, pushing for the immediate payment of their back wages.
The workers, who first complained of unpaid wages sometime last February, triggered a special inspection of La Mode by the Garment Oversight Board to determine if the company violated a judicial court-approved settlement agreement that ended a class action against the garment industry almost two years ago, of which the apparel firm is a party.
The board has the power to place a garment manufacturer on probation. That status temporarily suspends the manufacturer from accepting orders from apparel retailers who are part of the settlement agreement. La Mode, however, has reportedly ceased its Saipan operations, making any potential suspension sanction by the GOB realistically moot.
