Speech #1050107060

This article. "For Workers. Island Jobs can be a Losing Proposition." describes the desperate situations of these workers once they arrive in the CNMI deeply in debt and prone to exploitation. Every independent reporter who has traveled to the CNMI to investigate the working and living conditions of the tens of thousands of imported foreign workers there has found that the principles behind the labor and immigration situation in the CNMI are contrary to those defined by established ideals of American democracy. The CNMI economy is based on the exploitation of a large. disenfranchised. foreign population. and laws to protect these workers on U.S. soil are neither being adequately applied. nor enforced. and perpetrators of justice are not being punished. The article describes fiftyfive men from China who each paid $7.000 to a Chinese recruiter for "transportation. passports. and the promise of construction jobs. Most had to borrow money from friends. family members or loan sharks." Once they arrived in the CNMI. these men found no jobs waiting. Although the men marched in protest to the offices of the U.S. Department of Labor. the federal govemment could not help them because the CNMI has sole authority over immigration policy and controlling recruiters. A similar story is repeated for 134 men from Bangladesh who paid $5.000 to recruiters for jobs that did not exist. In both cases. the recruiters responsible for bringing these men from China and Bangladesh to the CNMI have fled. while the men remain disenchanted. hungry and desperate for employment. The article also details the story of one 22 year old Chinese worker who tells of being summoned four times by her garment factory supervisor in his attempts to pressure her into returning to China to have an abortion after she became pregnant. The worker refused to have an abortion and. after losing several days of work because of a pregnancy related illness. was fired. She is now jobless and fears deportation back to China. where she would likely be subjected to a lateterm abortion because she is unmarried. Nowhere else in America would these practices be allowed to continue. Congress must act to change this situation. I have introduced legislation. HR 1450the "Insular Fair Wage and Human Rights Act" that would place the CNMI immigration system under federal law. bringing the CNMI into conformity with every other U.S. territory. Further. this legislation will incrementally increase the local minimum wage until it reaches the federal level. and provide that garments only be allowed to bear the "Made in USA" label if all federal laws were adhered to in the manufacture of the garment. Passage of this legislation would bring additional federal oversight to the policies practiced in this remote corner of America. [From the Philadelphia Inquirer.