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Garment firm rejoins SGMA
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Posted on Dec 07 2004
Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association joined hands again with Concorde Garment Manufacturing Inc., after the Tan Holding’s Corp.’s garment operation, Saipan’s largest apparel plant, reunited with the association on Nov. 1, 2004.
“We are pleased to have Concorde back and our group whole again. There’s much work to do, and it’s in everyone’s best interest to combine our efforts in our time of urgency and uncertainty,” said SGMA executive director Richard A. Pierce.
“By rejoining an association they helped create, Concorde, originally three separate licensed operations, makes us a concerted voice where we are seen as one. This is vital as we focus on a ‘window of opportunity’ for the life of this industry,” said Pierce.
Concorde withdrew from SGMA last year, after Emergency Regulations created problems within the factories by allowing employees to move from employer to employer with a loss of quota being charged against the “original” employer.
With a garment industry worker pool created without the demand that used to exist, and with manufacturing firms losing orders to foreign countries due to global competition, the need for workers now falls short of the CNMI’s self-imposed voluntary restraint system; individual factory contract employee quotas and an overall ceiling on the industry totally.
“This association still understands why Concorde did what it did in withdrawing from SGMA, and we still cannot accept the ‘root cause’ for this; counterproductive regulatory control. We are just pleased that Concorde has looked beyond their initial problems, and decided to hold the interests of the group paramount, and in our common good,” said Pierce.
