Inside a nearby garment factory, rows of workers from China perform robotic motions under dull fluorescent lights all day long, sewing, ironing and packing. In fast-paced, mind-numbing sequence, they churn out box after box of shirts and skirts for American retailers like The Gap, Tommy Hilfiger and Sears, Roebuck.
Chinese workers have propelled the remarkable success of the garment industry here, pushing sales to nearly $1 billion in 1998. But the industry was hit with a legal bombshell in January when lawyers filed a class-action suit accusing garment makers and major retailers of systematically underpaying and mistreating workers.
The suit says that in dozens of factories in Saipan -- the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a United States commonwealth where most Federal laws apply -- workers are forced to work inhuman hours and to live in overcrowded and vermin-infested conditions. It even suggests that the workers are enduring a form of slavery, trapped with impossible debts and with little freedom to leave Saipan, a place where 20,000 American troops stormed ashore in 1944 in one of World War II's major victories.
But interviews with dozens of Chinese workers here tell a story that is not so stark. Chatting easily as they stroll freely in the evening after work, they describe orderly factories and clean dormitories, a view borne out in visits. They say they come to Saipan voluntarily to earn about five times what they made in China, heading home after two years with $6,000 to $10,000 saved.
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/world/index-asia.html