$8.75 million would go to plaintiffs’ lawyers; $5.8 million, cash payments to the workers; $4 million for a monitoring fund to prevent the harm previously caused by the industry to the workers; $565,254.80 for a trust fund that would be administered by the non-profit Tides Foundation for the court action before the California Superior Court; $500,000, to pay the claims administrator of the distribution fund; and $400,000; repatriation fund for garment workers.
It appears that the plaintiff’s lawyers were the ones who gained the most from the lawsuit. The establishment of a Garment Oversight Board that was charged with seeing that laws were followed in the garment factories seems like it should have been beneficial to the workers. However, abuses continued despite the “oversight.”
Many of the cheated garment workers never saw a CENT of money from the settlement because the checks never reached them. Why? They started giving the checks when the garments factories are starting to pack up their things and moved out of the island. The Garment Oversight Board did not anticipated that the garment workers will be going back to their country of origin without the token money from the settlement agreement. They knows that the money will not reach the recipient garments workers and the process will take years of distribution and while taking it that long they are receiving huge amount as compensations to their ballooned legal services disregarding the fact that that money came from the sweat of the poor garments workers who are at this very moment begging for money the owe to them.
According to Robert Collier & Jenny Strasburg of SF Chronicle report dated September 27, 2002, titled “Clothes Fold on Sweatshop lawsuit, Saipan workers to get millions,” the deal’s provisions include:
A code of conduct — companies agree to comply with basic employment standards, including extra pay for overtime work, safe food and drinking water.
Monitoring — a panel of three retired judges will be set up to oversee a program of factory monitoring, which the parties tentatively agreed would be carried out by the International Labor Organization, a U.N. agency. The inspectors will conduct unannounced inspections of the factories and investigate worker complaints. The judges can order payment of back wages, establish cures for violations found by the monitors and, in worst cases, place manufacturers on probation for repeated noncompliance with the code of conduct.
This according to the former garment workers who are now seeking money from the residual trust fund was indeed happened during that time.
Compensation — an estimated 30,000 current and former garment workers in Saipan are eligible to share about $6.4 million for unpaid back wages.
Repatriation — workers who want to return to their home countries will be eligible for up to $3,000 in travel and relocation costs.
But Judge Bellas gave only how much? $350
The third case, filed by a similar class of Saipan garment workers, was brought in federal court in Saipan against 22 Saipan-based garment contractors, charging violations of federal overtime law (the Fair Labor Standards Act) and various CNMI laws (including minimum wage laws and laws protecting various workplace rights). The Saipan class is smaller than the Los Angeles/Honolulu/Saipan class because the laws involved do not extend as far back in time. This case was assigned to the only federal judge in CNMI, Judge Alex Munson. After Judge Munson dismissed plaintiffs’ CNMI law class action claims (ruling that they were not sufficiently related to the federal overtime case to justify keeping them in the same case), individual plaintiffs, now numbering almost 650, began joining the lawsuit by filing Consents to Sue.
Those individuals filed under “Doe” pseudonyms, because they feared retaliation by the contractors and government officials back home if their identities became known. Although Judge Munson initially rejected the workers’ motion to proceed anonymously, the Ninth Circuit reversed that ruling in an emergency interlocutory appeal, and ordered that the case proceed, at least for the present, without any disclosure of the plaintiffs’ true identities. See Does I et al. v. Advanced Textile, (CV No.-01-0031)
Plaintiffs have now filed a Fourth Amended Complaint in that Saipan Fair Labor Standards Act case, and have requested Judge Munson to permit a notice to be sent to all potential plaintiffs’ informing them of the pendency of the case and their right to join in by filing Consent to Sue forms.
Please take note, on press releases by former Judge Bellas, that only those who were included on the SCMs are qualified for the Garment Workers Trust Fund money. He forgot to consider the “Doe” who filed Consent to Sue at that time whoa are afraid to reveal their identity for fear of being sent home by their employer. These are now the former garment workers asking for fair share from the residual money, a leftover fund from the garment workers trust fund as “Doe’s” during the litigation process.
The manufacturers agree as a condition of the settlement to comply with strict employment standards, including a guarantee of extra pay for overtime work, safe food and drinking water, and other basic workers’ rights. Workers who want to return to their home countries also will be eligible for up to $3,000 in relocation fees.
“This agreement sets up an independent monitoring system that assures that workers will be treated with dignity. A policy of human rights has arrived in Saipan,” commented Medea Benjamin, President of Global Exchange.
According to press release dated Jan. 30, 2010, “Munson pointed out that the nine-year-old litigation has to end at some point and, after years of court monitoring, that point has been reached. There is simply no acceptable for the filer’s last minutes effort to have the court begin the process anew, particularly when most of the cy press money had been distributed prior to the filing of these two motions.”
On or before Aug. 15, 2009, the deadline set forth by the garment trust fund chairman Judge Bellas, these former garment workers forwarded their request for the money from the garment workers trust funds, but Judge Bellas denied a lot of them for hardship reason, are they late? No they are not. On Dec. 10, 2009 and Jan. 22, 2010, Petitions were s forwarded to the office of Judge Bellas to “Hold in Abeyance” the distribution of residual funds to charitable non-profit organization, again they are not late. Judge Bellas simply ignored their plea for some reason.
Please take note that these former garment workers were neither after the Garment Oversight Board money nor from the Garment Workers Trust Funds. They are after the residual funds generated from the garment workers trust fund or the “sludge” that is the subject for distribution to non-profit organization by virtue of cy press. The settlement agreement specified that only a portion of the subject amount or ten per cent should be awarded to cypress. How much is 10 percent of $625,000 that is the only amount supposedly awarded to cy press and the reminder of it will equally shared by the former garment workers who are physically in the island facing hardship instead of denying them. They are only asking for “a piece of cake.”
People should also bear in mind and understand that without these garment workers or people like them should not be wearing one, and if we are not wearing one, we will end up in jail for indecent exposure. We must stand up and support them on their quest for fair share of the money that is purposely due to them instead of just looking at them on the street demanding their rights for being a victim of peonage and involuntary servitude by the garment factory owners.
CARLITO J. MARQUEZ
Puerto Rico, Saipan
