GOB frets over continued influx of garment workers

Some garment manufacturers continue to bring foreign workers into Saipan even though they have already made plans to close their factories in the near future, according to the Garment Oversight Board.

GOB chair Timothy H. Bellas, in a letter to factory owners, expressed concern about this practice, which was reportedly brought to the attention of the garment monitoring agency by workers themselves.

The arrival of new workers, Bellas added, “has become a greater concern at this time, because the GOB has recently exhausted all of the funds that were available to pay repatriation costs to workers.”

Richard A. Pierce, the governor’s special adviser for trade relations, agreed with Bellas. “No factory that is closing should be bringing new workers to Saipan. But, at the same time, factories that have orders must fill them and they need workers to do so,” he said in an e-mail to the Saipan Tribune.

He added that the CNMI Labor Department should depend upon the Chinese Economic Development Association to monitor the reported situation. CEDA is responsible, under a signed memorandum of understanding with the CNMI, to watch the recruitment of all Chinese nationals in the Saipan garment industry.

However, Pierce said he did not believe that any of the factories remaining in operation were expecting to close anytime soon. “They all have orders and should be still repatriating and hiring as in the past,” he said.

Concorde, UIC, Mirage, Onwel, Michigan, Top Fashion, Handsome, all of Rifu’s sites, Uno Moda, MGM, US CNMI, Jin Apparel, Winners, and Joo Ang are all solvent, he said.

Hansae and American Pacific have already indicated their intent to close.

According to Bellas, workers are being recruited to work in the garment industry, only to be told that their employer is shutting down within two months of their arrival on Saipan.

“We are at a loss to understand how management of these factories did not take the precaution of canceling the arrival of these employees to the CNMI in order to minimize the expenses of shutting down their operations,” Bellas said.

“More importantly, however, this constitutes a form of misrepresentation on which the workers have detrimentally relied by paying substantial fees to a recruiter in order to secure at least one year of employment in the CNMI,” he added.

Furthermore, Bellas noted that there seemed to be no need to hire off-island workers, as there are enough workers on island to meet the factories’ temporary labor requirements during the period before they close.

At least 1,500 former garment workers are reportedly looking for temporary or permanent jobs on island. These foreign workers were displaced due to factory closures and downsizing.