GAP Boycott Over Sweatshops Using "Made in USA" Guise

by Farhan Haq

Several rights groups, including the California-based Global Exchange and Sweatshop Watch, planned to kick off a campaign against The Gap's conduct in Saipan tomorrow by picketing the retailers' outlets in New York, Boston, San Francisco, New Orleans and Washington.

The Gap's New York store also would be picketed the same day by the Wetlands Preserve Environmental and Social Justice Activism Centre, which accused the retailer of damaging forests.

"The working conditions in factories making Gap clothing are intolerable and abusive," said Medea Benjamin, co-director of Global Exchange. "The company needs to clean up its operations in Saipan by complying with federal labor laws; abolishing the use of contracts that deny basic worker rights; and establishing an independent monitoring system."

Benjamin accused The Gap of egregious conduct in Saipan, although the San Francisco-based retail firm was one of 18 U.S. retailers named in January in a $1 billion lawsuit filed by 25,000 Saipanese workers over alleged labor violations.

(Repeated calls to The Gap's San Francisco headquarters today were not returned, but The Gap previously had emphasized that its code of conduct compels subcontractors to pay overtime and ensure health and safety standards.)

"We hope that consumer pressure on The Gap will force the company to reform its business practices in Saipan, and then other countries will have to follow," argued Nikki Bas, director of Sweatshop Watch. "The U.S. retailers that purchase one billion dollars of garments from Saipan every year are responsible for living and working conditions on the island."

Saipan, one of the islands in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas in the Pacific Ocean, has drawn attention in recent months as labor groups underscored the lower minimum wages and lack of oversight Saipanese workers face compared to their U.S. counterparts.

U.S. firms enjoyed advantages in Saipan unavailable to them on the mainland, including a low minimum wage -- only $3.05 an hour, compared to $5.15/hour -- and total freedom from U.S. import tariffs and quota restrictions. Lax immigration laws also allowed firms to benefit from cheap labor from nearby Asian countries.

Many of Saipan's laborers including 40,000 immigrants -- mostly from China, the Philippines and Bangladesh -- who, rights groups claimed, often signed contracts waiving their basic labor rights, including the right to join a union, before they begin work.

In recent months, some members of the U.S. Congress criticized Saipan's labor standards, and one Democratic representative, George Miller of California, last month introduced a bill designed to raise Saipan's minimum wage and give U.S. labor officials greater power to monitor conditions there.

"That the U.S. Congress has tolerated there practices beneath the American flag is inexcusable, and diminishes our standing in the world community," Miller argued last month.

President Bill Clinton's administration has a particular political incentive to pursue the cause of improved labor rights in Saipan: his main nemesis in Congress, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, has been reported to have significant financial dealings in Saipanese factories with poor labor records. DeLay was one of the House Mangers in the impeachment of President Clinton.

"OSHA almost always has a difficult time trying to inspect the factories in Saipan," said Carmencita Abad, a former Saipanese factory worker who was fired for trying to form a union. "Many local officials turn a blind eye to the regular abuses that workers face. If the judges and other officials there won't do anything, it's up to the retailers here to pressure the factories to clean up their act."

The campaign to pressure The Gap is the first one to target a single U.S. retailer over Saipan's conditions, although many other major firms -- including Nordstrom, Sears, Wal-Mart and Express -- also retail clothiers manufactured on the island.

The Gap has shown its responsiveness to consumer protests and labor rights allegations before, when the New York-based National Labor Committee charged the retailer in 1995 with purchasing orders from a factory in El Salvador, Mandarin International, where child laborers worked for low pay in locked rooms.

After a number of demonstrations, Gap Vice President Stan Raggio signed an agreement with the National Labor Committee and two religious groups that would prod Mandarin to rehire fired union leaders and explore independent monitoring of The Gap's Salvadoran subcontractors.

The Gap promised to resume production with Mandarin only when it was "confident that its orders will result in humane and productive employment in El Salvador," Raggio pledged in the agreement. Yet Salvadoran workers last year argued that labor rights violations, including harassment of union leaders, continued at Mandarin even after the agreement.