SGMA urges fair coverage of CNMI issues at WTO
When the World Trade Organization meets late next month in Seattle, organizations ranging from labor unions and consumer groups to hard-line environmentalists and Third World peasant movements are planning major demonstrations.
The Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association has urged the Seattle Times to rethink its past coverage, particularly of partial settlements by clothing retailers named in the class action lawsuits filed last January.
Stories in the Times and throughout the stateside media presented this as a big victory for workers and the human rights groups supporting them, which proves that all claims of bad treatment and worker abuse on Saipan are true.
“Those who settled are doing so to save themselves a lot of money rather than continue to defend their interests against rapacious law firms such as Milberg, Weiss, the masterminds behind this effort,” the SGMA said.
According to the association, the California firm formerly made millions by suing corporate management in the high-tech industry for allegedly not giving enough money to stockholders. Rather than fight, many of the management chose instead to pay off Milberg, Weiss in settlements, a process described by SGMA as more like “blackmail.”
“In this case, Milberg, Weiss has used the interests of labor unions — to kill us as a competitor — and the human rights groups, not always the same by the way, as the means to create yet another stream of revenue,” said a statement issued by SGMA.
The group said garment retailers who settled will save millions in legal fees and head off worse damage to their public relations efforts. “Those remaining in the cases are willing to pay the price to put these wild allegations in front of a judge, rather than in the realm of propaganda.”
The human rights group in particular should question why the U. S unions want to eliminate the CNMI garment industry if their concern is truly for better factory conditions, according to SGMA.
“[H]ow it will help the situation if the WTO could be persuaded to pass rules that will effectively redirect manufacture of our production to, say Honduras or Bangladesh, the kind of places where it is being driven in any event. It certainly won’t help the worker interests that so concern the human rights folks,” the statement said.
“When the Times and other U.S. media describe our Saipan factories as ‘sweatshops,’ this is contrary to the official definition of the U.S. Department of Labor, which monitors our operations and can close them if these conditions are found.”
The World Trade Organization’s third Ministerial Meeting will be held in Seattle from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3.
