RIP Saipan Garment Industry
On January 31st Saipan’s last garment factory will shut its doors. At its height the industry’s 36 factories employed some 15,000 workers, mostly imported workers from Asia.
Saipan’s advantage was that worker’s wages were low and the garments produced could still be labeled Made in USA. Now that many of the quotas have been lifted the factories have closed down and moved closer to their labor force in Asia.
For a good glimpse of the industry check out John Bowe’s Nobodies.
“Opinions vary,” Goodridge editor of “Chicken Feathers and Garlic Skin: Diary of a Chinese Factory Girl” told the Saipan Tribune, “but most workers feel it was a benefit to earn the money they did. When the Uno Moda closes in a few days, it will mark a significant turning point for the island’s now primarily tourist-based economy.”
A video from inside a garment factory in Saipan:
Dear Sir,
My name is Raja Shekar Reddy working as factory/production manager in firsteps baby wear pvt ltd…Located at Bangalore ….India ….
Sir, I have more than 15 years experience in only knit garment industry….
Have experience in manual pattern….except cad…
Practical experience in all stitching m/c like lock stich, flat lock, overlock, bartack, zigzag, coverseam..Popping, cutting m/c, band knife…etc
Sir, pls. find with attached my resume with all my experience details…kindly feed back if any you have production jobs…..
I hope I will be receive positive reply from you
Thanks and regards
Raja Shekar reddy
Why does everyone think I own a garment factory?
“Where Am I Wearing”. . .the clothing line! Brilliant! I want a cut!
Your article doesn’t seem to dive into the subject at all. The closing of the legal loophole that kept garment sweatshops in Saipan is A Very Good Thing. Anyone who claims otherwise is so wrapped up in putting dollars into his own pocket that he ignores any level of human suffering. I have lived in Saipan, walked through these fenced-in factories and the fenced-in dormitories, and spoken with the workers. They are not “skilled garment workers”. They are confused, unskilled, uneducated farm girls from China. They are not allowed, by law, to complain about their experience once they return to China. They are told any story to get them to come to Saipan & work long, long hours, with one day off per month. They’re unable to go outside factory & dormitory grounds unless given an escort and the boss’s permission. They’re unable to speak the local languages. They’re unaware of their rights, and those rights and protections were far, far less than is accorded a factory worker in America…yet Saipan was permitted to avoid import tariffs and permitted to put “Made in America” (by sweatshop foreign fenced-in underpaid labor) labels on the brand-name clothing made there. With the end of Saipan’s immigration control and the still-inadequate raising of the minimum wage there, we should be singing a chorus of “Ding, dong, the witch is dead” in celebration of the end of vast human misery and exploitation, not saying “R.I.P.” as though a beloved granny had departed in a puff of lemon tea scented talcum powder and happy hanky-waving.