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SGMA meets with US Labor-Wage and Hour Compliance
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Posted on Oct 06 2004
Officials of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Compliance Division recently met with Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association representatives to discuss upcoming fiscal year 2004 enforcement findings and reports on work within the Saipan apparel factories.
DOL’s Terrence Trotter (Hawaii), Richard Hamilton (Saipan) and Luis Cabuhat (Saipan) met with SGMA’s executive director Richard A. Pierce in a courtesy visit at the Saipan International Airport upon Trotter’s arrival and Pierce’s departure to discuss the past year’s enforcement reports.
An increase in educational outreach to the SGMA membership occurred during the past year. As a result of these face-to-face educational sessions, according to US DOL, instances of wage and hour compliance violations are at a low within the member factories.
Advance notification of wage and salary recovery for employees has still been detected but these violations now occur as a result of factories having to delay scheduled payroll due to uncollected sales contracts, not from old violations such as unrecorded hours, or other compliance violations.
“US DOL now has seen almost all violations of the past put behind us,” Pierce said. “What they see now is simply a sign of the competitive nature of our business in the factories.”
US DOL announced during the recent meeting that their enforcement offices will notify all contracting parties when there’s an instance of delayed wages, or other wage violations. This will “put on notice” all parties that particular attention needs to be paid to timely production, billing, payment on contracts and wage payments, and that the situations are being closely monitored.
Although a rare occurrence, SGMA told US DOL that they are aware of three factories that have been late in wage payments for a week or two weeks. Most of the time, employees are aware of the nature of the delay, and employees, at the end of their contracts, do not return to their home countries without full compensation.
SGMA is comprised of 24 of Saipan’s 25 licensed apparel factories. The industry accounts for nearly 16,000 jobs in the factories and yields a third of the CNMI government’s budget income.
