---

‘Made in USA’ should
mean dignity and
a livable wage

THE ISSUE A former South Korean businessman was sentenced to 40 years in prison for treatment of his workers in Samoa.

THE stiff sentencing of a former South Korean businessman who subjected hundreds of Vietnamese and Chinese workers to inhumane conditions at a garment factory in American Samoa is the latest event that should deter other sweatshop operators. More steps are needed to prevent future abuse of workers producing goods stamped "Made in the USA."

Federal Judge Susan Mollway sentenced Kil Soo Lee to 40 years in prison for numerous crimes, including involuntary servitude, extortion and money laundering. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said the sentence concluded "the largest human trafficking case ever prosecuted by the Department of Justice and is another example of our commitment to protect the civil rights of trafficking victims," he said.

Earlier last month, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice vowed to "fight this scourge," estimating that up to 800,000 people a year are trafficked across borders. She said the United States provided more than $96 million in foreign aid last year to help other countries strengthen their efforts to prevent human trafficking.

Despite the Lee sentencing and a $20 million settlement of a landmark sweatshop case brought against clothing retailers and local manufacturers in the Northern Mariana Islands, incentives remain for what Rice calls "the brutal crime of human trafficking" to U.S. soil. Manufacturers still are allowed to be free of American immigration and labor law on U.S. possessions such as Samoa and the Marianas.

After abuses in Saipan surfaced in the late 1990s, the Senate unanimously approved a bill introduced by Senator Akaka that would have extended U.S. immigration and minimum-wage law to the Marianas. The bill, which would have required companies to stamp "Made in America" only if at least 50 percent of the work was performed by American citizens, was denied a hearing in the House.

Recent disclosures have shown that Jack Abramoff, a Washington lobbyist with ties to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, was instrumental in the House roadblock. Abramoff's law firm received nearly $9 million from the Marianas to prevent House action on the Akaka proposal.

Former Marianas Governor Froilan C. Tenorio told the New York Times recently that his islands' garment industry would have been devastated if it had been denied the ability to import Chinese laborers and pay them $3.05 an hour, well below the federal minimum wage.

Documents show that Abramoff paid for some of the travel of dozens of congressional staff members and representatives to visit the Marianas, in violation of House ethics rules. DeLay was accompanied on the trip by his wife, daughter and three aides.

If Rice and Gonzales are serious about combating human trafficking, they should support the Akaka measure, extended to all American possessions. Manufacturers should be allowed to stamp "Made in the USA" on their garments only if it carries the meaning that workers who produced them were treated humanely and paid a livable wage.

---

---

---