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Barbed wire. Barracks. Unsanitary, overcrowded. 12 hour work days, seven days a week. What am I describing? Sounds like a scene out of a work camp from the holocaust, or maybe some sort of strict jail. Clearly, this doesn’t describe anything in the United States, right? Wrong. The above describes the life of over 40,000 workers on a small island called Saipan. These people sew clothes for companies like The Gap, Levis, and Abercrombie and Fitch. And it’s all done inside the United States. Saipan is part of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, which is a US territory (like Puerto Rico). Normally, this would mean that federal labor laws apply. But in this case, the US let the people of Saipan set their own policies. That includes a minimum wage of $3.05, compared to our minimum wage of $5.15. These people are tricked into coming. They are recruited from countries like China and the Philippines, brought as “guest workers” under one-year contracts. They can be fired and deported at any impulse; and that is what happens if they complain or try to organize a union.
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