[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 70 (Wednesday, June 3, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E985-E986]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               WHO WILL WIN THE SECOND BATTLE OF SAIPAN?

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. GEORGE MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 3, 1998

  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, the following column by the 
highly respected writer Mark Shields appeared in the Seattle Post-
Intelligencer on May 18, 1998 and describes the debate in Congress to 
reform the outrageous practices in the U.S. territory of the 
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands that conflict with core 
American ethics and values.
  ``Made in the USA Is at Heart of the Second Battle of Saipan'' 
describes the continuing, widespread labor abuses and problematic 
immigration policies in the US/CNMI that have prompted a bipartisan 
group in Congress to support legislation to bring these local laws in 
conformity with those that apply throughout the rest of our country.
  Like the battle of Saipan during World War II when American troops 
fought for 25 days to capture the island chain, the clash in Congress 
is an uphill battle between those who are working to instill 
humanitarian reforms in the island's labor and immigration policies and 
those who hail the existing policies as a cornerstone of ``free 
enterprise.''
  At the root of this ``second battle of Saipan'' is the local control 
over minimum wage and immigration policies that was temporarily granted 
to local authorities over twenty years ago when the US/CNMI first 
became a part of the United States. However, since this local control 
was granted, the US/CNMI has not made any serious attempts to either 
increase the local minimum wage to the federal level or closely control 
its borders to prevent an influx of immigrants as it had promised. 
Rather, the US/CNMI maintains an artificially low minimum wage of $3.05 
per hour and has opened its borders to a flood of foreigners who 
provide the labor pool for menial, labor-intensive jobs.
  Currently, foreign workers compose 91% of the private sector 
workforce and significantly outnumber U.S. citizens in the US/CNMI. 
Local labor controls and law enforcement are severely lacking, company 
housing is squalid, abuse is common and this low-cost foreign workforce 
is easy prey for exploitation. And the nearly $1 billion in garments 
produced in these conditions by foreign workers bears the ``Made in 
USA'' label, although the labor protections normally associated with 
this label are nonexistent. Foreign workers in the US/CNMI can be 
deported at a moment's notice if they complain about conditions and are 
forbidden from changing jobs if they have a problem

[[Page E986]]

with their employer. Clearly, the experience of these workers in the 
US/CNMI is not representative of a work experience anywhere else in 
America. According to Mr. Shields, ``toiling 12 hours a day, seven days 
a week, without any of the worker protections Americans are guaranteed, 
is tragically common.''
  Congress has the power and the duty to ensure that basic fundamental 
principals of labor and immigration law are adhered to throughout the 
United States and its territories. I urge my colleagues to read this 
column and decide for themselves how they would like to see the 
``Second battle of Saipan'' play out. I think you'll agree that if our 
efforts to apply federal labor and immigration controls to the US/CNMI 
are successful, as Mr. Shields notes, ``the United States and humanity 
will win.''

          [From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 18, 1998]

     ``Made in the USA'' Is At Heart of the Second Battle of Saipan

                           (By Mark Shields)

       For Americans of a certain age, Saipan will forever remain 
     that Pacific Island battle where, during 25 days of hell in 
     the summer of 1944, the U.S. Marines captured 47 square miles 
     of strategic real estate. The price was high. U.S. combat 
     casualties numbered 16,612, including 3,225 Americans killed 
     in action.
       For the Japanese, the numbers are still staggering: 23,811 
     known soldiers dead added to an overwhelming majority of the 
     18,000 Japanese civilians on the island who chose death over 
     surrender by jumping off the cliffs into the sea. That mass 
     Japanese civilian suicide helped convince the Truman 
     administration that Japan would never surrender and that the 
     use of atomic weapons would actually save Japanese and 
     American lives.
       Today, Saipan is the capital of the Commonwealth of the 
     Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), a chain of 14 islands in the 
     North Pacific. The approximately 28,000 indigenous people of 
     the CNMI, following their own free vote, are all U.S. 
     citizens. But the CNMI was granted local authority over 
     immigration to the islands and over permitting island 
     employers to pay workers at a lower minimum wage than that of 
     the United States. Still, any clothing manufacturer in Saipan 
     is entitled to sew the ``Made in the U.S.A.'' label in every 
     garment. And all such garments can enter the U.S. mainland 
     market free of tariffs and quotas.
       This has led directly to the ``Second Battle of Saipan.'' 
     The island has turned into a legalized sweatshop. Ninety-one 
     percent of the private-sector work force, numbering 42,000, 
     consists of foreign workers from China, the Philippines, 
     Bangladesh and Sri Lanka who are too often exploited on U.S. 
     soil.
       According to the sworn testimony of U.S. officials, and 
     human-rights and workers-rights professionals, those foreign 
     workers--being paid barely half the U.S. minimum wage--live 
     behind barbed wire in squalid shacks without plumbing. 
     Toiling 12 hours a day, seven days a week, without any of the 
     worker protections Americans are guaranteed, is tragically 
     common.
       Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., has personally visisted the 
     island factories. He has introduced legislation to raise the 
     island minimum wage and impose federal control of 
     immigration. With characteristic bluntness, Miller says: 
     ``Let's be clear. Foreign workers using foreign cloth under 
     the eyes of foreign supervisors are working in a foreign-
     owned factory producing garments into which they sew a label 
     that reads `Made in the U.S.A.,' and that is the only reason 
     these foreign factories are there--to escape U.S. duties and 
     quotas imposed by the Congress to protect U.S. jobs.''
       But Miller is in the House minority. And Rep. Tom DeLay, R-
     Texas, the House majority whip, who with his family was the 
     New Year's Eve guest of the Marianas government, publicly has 
     vowed to fight any federal takeover of Saipan's immigration 
     and labor laws.
       As seen and heard on ABC-TV News, DeLay told his host, 
     ``You are a shining light for what is happening in the 
     Republican Party, and you represent everything that is good 
     about what we are trying to do in America and leading the 
     world in the free-market system.''
       DeLay does have a point that the foreign workers in Saipan 
     are earning more and often under less brutal conditions than 
     they could in their own homelands. But for those who remember 
     the first battle of Saipan, the ``Made in the U.S.A.'' label 
     means standards of quality and standards of conduct. But more 
     important than how something is made is how the people who 
     make that something are treated, that they are free to 
     worship and to complain and to quit.
       One man who understands that well could be DeLay's worst 
     legislative nightmare: Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, 
     chairman of the energy and natural resources committee. 
     Murkowski supports legislation similar to Miller's. But the 
     conservative Alaskan has the clout to make things happen. 
     Showing a sense of history, Murkowski rebuts defenders of the 
     Saipan status quo: ``The last time we heard a justification 
     that economic advances would be jeopardized if workers were 
     treated properly was shortly before Appomattox.''
       Frank Murkowski is right. If he is successful, the United 
     States and humanity will win the second battle of Saipan.

     

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