Workers at the Daewoosa Samoa Ltd. factory, mainly women from Vietnam, had claimed they were locked in the compound, forced to work without pay, given little food, threatened and, in some cases, beaten.
``The conditions under which these workers work were beyond comprehension,'' Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said in announcing a new round of fines. ``The owner of this factory must be held accountable for his inhumane acts and pay the consequences of his actions.''
Daewoosa Samoa was ordered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to pay $78,500 for 28 alleged safety and health violations. The company, which closed the plant in January, was also fined $213,000 last June for repeat violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Federal charges are pending against the company owner, Kil-Soo Lee of South Korea. He was arrested by the FBI in March and accused of involuntary servitude and forced labor.
Lee's attorney in a civil case, Marie Lafaele, has said workers fabricated charges to qualify for a new law that allows asylum in America for victims of human trafficking.
About 250 people sewed men's sportswear for U.S. stores at the plant on American Samoa, a U.S. territory about 2,300 miles southwest of Hawaii. One customer, J.C. Penney Co., stopped selling the factory's clothes in December when it learned of the alleged abuses.
Manufacturers in American Samoa are required to follow U.S. Labor Department regulations, including paying overtime. The area's minimum wage is $2.60, but workers at the garment plant claim they earned about $1 an hour. Some have been brought to America and are expected to be witnesses in Lee's trial.
Federal inspectors said they found ``dangerous and unsanitary working conditions'' at the plant. In the workers' living quarters, the inspectors said they found waste, rodents and crowded sleeping conditions. Problems were first found at the plant in a September 1999 inspection, according to the Labor Department.
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