SGMA: $1B suit ‘unsubstantiated’

The Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association yesterday brushed aside three lawsuits initiated by a New York-based law firm against the CNMI apparel industry and its U.S. buyers, saying the allegations were rehash of previous criticisms and were largely unsubstantiated.

The group, comprised mostly of the island’s largest garment firms, also reiterated earlier vows to clean up the industry and to further improve working and living conditions for the thousands of foreign workers employed by the sector.

In a statement, SGMA expressed confidence the court will find the claims made in the $1 billion lawsuits to be “embellished and exaggerated accounts of wage and rights abuse.”

The lawsuits, filed in federal courts in California and Saipan last week, accused manufacturers and mainland-based buyers of labor violations against contract workers who were hired by garment factories from China, Bangladesh and the Philippines. They have denied the charges.

“(T)here is nothing new with respect to these allegations. Our membership has made every effort to comply with any and all compliance issues in the past, and every effort has been taken by the association to provide every opportunity to address all human rights issues through investments to improve our workplace standards,” SGMA said.

The association maintained it will soon implement a code of conduct for all members within the next few weeks in a bid to hasten ongoing efforts to adopt an in-house policy aimed at complying with both commonwealth and federal standards concerning safety, health and a living wage for their employees.

“SGMA has always sought to foster and facilitate ethical reforms and commercially responsible member companies,” it explained. “These legal actions do nothing to change the decisions… to maintain all efforts at supplying our customers and their consumers with the products they should wear with peace of mind.”

Meanwhile, a lawyer for defendants on the lawsuits said that while the allegations may have been true in the past, they have completely ignored recent efforts by several factories to correct violations pointed by federal agencies.

According to David Wiseman, the companies he represents in fact have paid out money due to some of their workers as part of the settlement on cases filed with the U.S. Department of Labor.

He said the garment manufacturers, whom the lawyer did not name, have also agreed to comply with employment and other laws — a fact that was not considered when the lawsuits named them as defendants.

“I have been involved in several major lawsuits brought by the U.S. Department of Labor, and while several of them had allegations with substantial merit, with respect to my clients, and are based on events of a different era,” Wiseman said in a statement.