SGMA, students talk garment, trade issues

The Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association extended an invitation to the students of the Northern Marianas College to participate in a movement growing in the United States toward assuring consumers that apparel from Saipan, and other places around the world, is made by workers who are treated fairly.

In a letter sent by the Current Affairs Class at NMC, United Intenational Corporation President James Lin, SGMA Executive Director Richard A. Pierce and William Stewart have been requested to speak to the class, and address general headnote 3(a) and the World Trade Organization issues surrounding the CNMI garment industry.

Pierce responded to the NMC students by accepting the invitation to speak, and explaining that university and college students in the United States are insisting that all apparel sold in the U. S., and especially on college campuses, are manufactured in factories that are respecting their workers rights.

Some major universities are even calling for the formation of a Fair Labor Association which would monitor all factories around the world producing apparel for compliance with workplace and living condition standards.

Pierce explained to the students that in just a few weeks, the effort to eliminate sweatshop labor in the apparel industry has gone from the pet project of a few leftwing activists to a cause celebre at many colleges and universities across the nation.

Even Congressman George Miller from California is championing the students as leaders, of a sort, in his campaign against the CNMI’s garment industry.

The SGMA Executive Director is suggesting that the students here in Saipan should do exactly that — unite with their mainland counterparts and stand against any sweatshop labor in the world.

SGMA would like to discuss with the NMC students in their April 13 forum at the NMC campus, the possibility of having NMC students investigate and monitor the Saipan factories for their own information to share with other interested groups.

SGMA has even suggested that the NMC students could conceivably send accounting students into the factories to monitor payroll records, or send occupational safety students into the factories as a learning center, or ask foreign students at NMC to interview SGMA member companies’ workers about their living and working conditions.

Ideally, the NMC would form an advocacy group to accompany the association’s monitoring teams and then forward their own findings to interested fellow advocacy groups in the mainland.

“In the name of learning, much could be shared with other universities and colleges about the real situation in the factories of Saipan. The NMC students could serve as a special third party in providing information to their fellow university and college students. Students from NMC could satisfy students in Boston that goods manufactured in Saipan meet the Fair Labor Association standards, ” Pierce maintained.