Thai Sweatshop Workers Savor Freedom’s Joys : Labor: The 72 reportedly held as virtual slaves in factory ‘went from hell to heaven,’ one community leader says. Two suspects are still fugitives.

As federal investigators intensified their manhunt for two suspected principals of an El Monte sweatshop, the 72 workers who authorities say were virtually enslaved at the clandestine factory savored their first full day of freedom Saturday.

“They feel like they’ve had a rebirth; they went from hell to heaven,” said Chanchanit Martorell, executive director of the Thai Community Development Center, one of several groups assisting the former sweatshop laborers in making the difficult transition from virtual captivity to freedom.

One group gathered Saturday at the Wat Thai Buddhist Temple in North Hollywood, where some seemed overwhelmed.

“It’s really hard to express what I’m feeling,” said Wan, 27, who, like others, declined to give her full name. Some fear retribution from their alleged abusers, especially because two of them are still fugitives. “Happy is the best that I can say right now.”

The 72, who were released Friday and early Saturday from federal custody, are staying at several churches and with various community organizations. All were freed on $500 bond each and given working papers. Though suspected illegal immigrants, U.S. authorities are requiring them to remain in the United States as material witnesses in the federal prosecution of the alleged sweatshop operators.

Discoveries Saturday included the simple pleasures of taking walks and cooking meals. Some made telephone calls to Thailand, where the case has received extensive press coverage.

“Just that feeling that they can look at the sky is so important,” Martorell said.

There was one dark note: Several workers reported about $6,000 missing while they were in the custody of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. The INS held the 72 for more than nine days after the El Monte factory and two related sites were raided on Aug. 2. Federal authorities are investigating the money’s reported disappearance.

As the workers recount their experiences, some excruciating new details are emerging. One man told an acquaintance that he was never permitted to visit a dentist--so he extracted several of his own abscessed teeth.

In fact, community workers say virtually no medical care was provided to the workers, most of whom are women between 20 and 50. At least one arrived at the El Monte site seven years ago, authorities say, while others only began work a few months ago. Among the few who were allowed to leave the factory were those who became gravely ill, according to workers’ accounts.

While the Thai nationals begin their difficult adjustment, U.S. authorities--with the assistance of the Thai government--are stepping up their search for two alleged principals. They are seeking a Thailand-based recruiter and another man who authorities say walked away as state officials executed a search warrant on Aug. 2 at a sewing plant near Downtown Los Angeles. That site served as a front for the El Monte facility, officials say.

Federal authorities are privately irate that the suspect got away. California Labor Commissioner Victoria Bradshaw, widely applauded for her agency’s role in liberating the captives, confirmed Saturday that the alleged accomplice left the scene.

“I’m certainly not saying there weren’t flaws” in the operation, Bradshaw said.

Both missing suspects are believed to be sons of Sunee Manasulangkoon, the matriarch and alleged ringleader of the family-based ring. U.S. authorities arrested her at the El Monte facility along with seven other alleged accomplices who authorities say include three of her sons, two daughters-in-law and two guards.

The eight are being charged in U.S. District Court with harboring or transporting illegal immigrants. But officials say other charges, including peonage and conspiracy, may be added.

The alleged ringleader’s eldest son--nicknamed “Sunshine”--is believed to be the person who recruited the workers in Bangkok sewing shops for the slots in El Monte, authorities say. The recruiter is probably in Thailand, officials add.

Most of the laborers were rural women who had left impoverished eastern Thailand and enlisted in the Bangkok sewing trade as a means of supporting their families. Authorities suspect that the laborers were provided with false documents--possibly Thai passports bearing valid U.S. visas, but with substituted photographs--and entered the United States via airplane at Honolulu, before flying on to Los Angeles.

The smugglers covered upfront costs such as transportation, authorities said, and told the workers that the debt--almost $5,000--would be subtracted from their earnings. Such debt-peonage schemes are typical of rings that smuggle people from Asia into this country, authorities say.

But the women had no idea they would be held as virtual slaves. After several workers escaped, authorities say, the operators placed barbed wire around the complex and covered windows with plywood. The overseers even temporarily moved the El Monte facility to a warehouse for several months in early 1993, one official said, when they apparently feared being discovered.

As it turned out, an INS investigation in 1992 and several visits by El Monte housing officials in 1993 failed to uncover the sweatshop.

Of the 72 workers, 67 are women, all trained seamstresses, and five are men, several of whom are sewing machine technicians.

Their skills, community representatives say, make them eminently employable in Los Angeles’ bustling garment business.

However, community activists are closely screening all possible employers. Some have offered jobs, but the activists want to make sure the laborers do not end up back in substandard shops.

“We’re looking for at least minimum wage jobs for them, with some benefits, and we’re looking closely at the conditions of the workplace,” said Julie Su, an attorney at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, another group assisting the Thai workers.

Su is one of the lawyers preparing a civil suit against manufacturers, retailers, distributors and other firms that profited from the sweatshop-produced apparel. Federal and state investigators have been combing records, labels and other material discovered at the site to determine who was buying the clothing produced in El Monte.

Firms that purchased sweatshop-produced goods may be held liable for back pay to the workers, an amount that will be in the millions of dollars, officials say.

For now, the workers must adjust to life in the United States and master such fundamental tasks as using pay telephones, shopping at 7-Eleven, or just trying to make sense of Southern California. Along with jobs, community workers will be seeking apartments for the Thai nationals, who have expressed a desire to remain together.

“They have to learn a lot of basic life skills that a lot of us take for granted,” Su said.

(Anyone wishing to donate is asked to call the Thai Community Development Center at (213) 739-8455.)

Times staff writer Lucille Renwick contributed to this story.