This Isn't Really "Breaking" News, But May Have Slipped Under Your Radar

Came across this story a long time ago, but its pertinent to current political debate:

If you're one of those independent-minded voters who drifted in recent years to the Republican camp and may be thinking twice about that allegiance come November, there is one more reason to do so: Allen Stayman.

You've probably never heard of Stayman, but indicted former lobbyist and Republican insider Jack Abramoff knew him well. Abramoff and his lobbying team went to great lengths to oust Stayman from his State Department post, even dubbing the expulsion the "Stayman Project." Why? Because years earlier as an official in the Interior Department, Stayman led an effort to help exploited workers toiling in Chinese-owned sweatshops in a US commonwealth.

Since the 1980s, the tiny Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific and particularly the main island of Saipan have attracted numerous Chinese garment manufacturers. The Chinese loved this arrangement because it allowed their clothes to carry the label "Made in the USA," and shipments from the islands didn't face the import quotas or duties that existed at the time.

Conscientious consumers assumed that the garments were made on the US mainland in conformance with our labor laws. To maintain the ruse and keep workers in penury, the islands' government doled out $7.9-million over six years to Abramoff.

Wendy Doromal, who taught school in the Marianas before becoming a human rights activist, told NPR's Weekend Edition in June that the guest workers, primarily from China, were treated as disposable flotsam. "The barbed wire around the factories face inward so that the mostly women couldn't get out."

Many of the workers were minors who were kept in barracks at night in what was described by our government as "labor camps." The workers were charged by recruiters thousands of dollars for "jobs in the US." Then they landed on an island 8,000 miles away. Doromal said the women had quotas that were impossible to reach within a normal workday and they wouldn't be paid for the overtime.

Pam Brown, former federal ombudsman for the Northern Marianas, recently told Moyers On America that workers there were forced to sign contracts agreeing that "if they got pregnant they'd have an abortion."

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