Clinton Seeks Labor Abuse Crackdown in Mariana Islands

Hoping to clamp down on long-standing labor and human rights abuses in the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, the Clinton administration moved to close loopholes that allow the U.S. territory to employ cheap, often exploited foreign workers in the apparel industry at the expense of U.S. citizens.

The recommendations, which would affect more than $600 million in annual clothing exports to the U.S., are contained in a harshly worded government report issued Tuesday. The report calls for implementation of federal labor and immigration laws on the 14-island archipelago.

The Marianas, near Guam in the Pacific, are currently exempted from such laws under a 1976 covenant. That means, for instance, that there are no restrictions on the number of foreigners who can live and work on the islands.

Unlike a treaty, however, a covenant can be unilaterally amended by Congress. And the government report urges Congress to take that step.

Current minimum wage on the islands is $3.05 an hour, $1.70 less than the federal standard. And earlier this year, a House committee found a “systematic pattern of [labor and human rights] violations” in the Marianas. The panel said that in the eyes of other nations, this country “is subject to embarrassment because of continuing ill treatment of foreign persons on United States soil.”

The new report, issued by the Interior Department with input from the Labor, Justice, Commerce and Treasury departments, concluded that because of the existing labor and immigration conditions on the islands, imports from there “cause serious damage to the United States apparel industry.”

It said poor working conditions for foreign workers, as well as “allegations of . . . illegal recruitment, battery, rape, child labor and forced prostitution,” have sparked official complaints from the Philippine and Chinese governments. Most of the islands’ foreign workers come from those two countries.