SGMA, EEOC hold dialog

The Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association invited Director Timothy A. Riera of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to speak with the SGMA membership at the monthly general membership meeting last Thursday.

Riera spoke with the 33 members about the four applications of law that EEOC administers that could possibly affect the garment manufacturers. Riera reported that EEOC administers and enforces the Title VII Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination Act, the Equal Pay Act and the Disabilities Act of 1992.

SGMA Executive Director Richard A. Pierce reported to Riera that some SGMA member companies are falling prey to false discrimination claims from workers from Bangladesh who were hired temporarily after a request from DOLI Sec. Mark Zachares to lend a helping hand in getting them employed as a means to return to their home country.

Pierce reported that once they were convinced that they would not be allowed to continue work after their 90-day temporary work authorization had expired, the workers then fabricated discrimination charges as a means to avoid repatriation.

Riera stated that EEOC’s mission is to promote equal opportunity in employment through administrative and judicial enforcement of the federal rights laws and through education and technical assistance.

SGMA Director Benigno Fitial asked that “if it were true that EEOC was formed in 1964, who did it take 34 years to come to Saipan to tell people here about them?”

Riera responded that it was probably a funding problem.

“No one in this membership would ever claim that EEOC had any other agenda than to educate and enforce the laws applicable under the EEOC,” Pierce said.

“However, SGMA is extremely empathetic with their mission in that just as EEOC as well as other federal enforcement offices may be utilized by the U.S. administration to further their agenda in the CNMI, SGMA members are subject to the agenda of some nonresident workers that do not want to return to their home country, that in turn utilize the EEOC and other judicial remedies in furthering those agendas.”

Pierce said “SGMA would hope that in this empathy could be conveyed in the hope that EEOC would do as well as it can in sorting out the real from the obvious abuse on a system put at the disposal of the destitute, the disadvantaged and the dishonest.”

Riera agreed to assist SGMA in their advanced Code of Conduct training in August, alongside the U.S. Labor Wage and Hour and OSHA Divisions.