Exploitation

Labour

Exploitation in the Marianas

By Barbara Ray

“F — you for saying we’re not friendly,” yelled a driver to Wendy and Boboy Doromal, residents of the Northern Marianas island of Rota who exposed extensive labour abus es there. The two, along with their five children, have since fled the island, their home for 10 years, under threats of death.

Rota, known as “the friendly island”, has been inundated in the last weeks with reports of rape and physical abuse, withheld wages, 15hour working days, decrepit living conditions, forced prostitution, and demeaning verbal abuse directed at its approximately 1500 Filipino con tract workers.

Many citizens of Rota, population 3000, see the publicity surrounding the abuses that Doromal brought to light as excessive and unfair. First reported in Pacific Daily News and later picked up by the Washington Post, the alleged abuses have now caught the attention of US Congress.

Benjamin Manglona, former lieu tenant governor of the Northern Marianas, speaking on a Guam radio talk-show, defended Rota, saying, “It was only 10 percent of the workers who were abused. What about the 90 percent who are happy? Everyone has labour problems. I think the reports are overstated.” The majority of callers to the program agreed with Manglona and see the outside intru sion as yet another example of United States’ patronising attitude.

Nevertheless, Northern Marianas Governor, Froilan Tenorio, who rep resents the islands of Rota, Saipan and Tinian, was called before the US Congress and spent a few painful

days before a Senate oversight hear ing admitting problems existed. “I am angry, saddened, distressed, and ashamed to have to come here before you and affirm that the horror stories of human rights abuses of non-resident workers on Rota, as well as on Saipan and Tinian, are gen erally accurate ”

His promises to address the issues promptly were not enough for Congress, which under a 1976 Commonwealth Covenant between the Northern Marianas and the United States, provides $27 million in federal money to the islands each year. “Fix it or we will,” was the mes sage Representative Elton Gallegly had for the Governor.

Under the compact, the United States loosened its hold over the islands, granting them, among other things, control of minimum wage laws and immigration. However, Congress still holds the carrot of compact money when matters of political sensitivity arise, and the Philippines is a long-time ally of the United States. That alliance, coupled with looming international trade negotiations with Japan and GATT nations, and imminent invasion of Haiti over, among other things, human rights violations, all com bined to make Washington unusually sensitive to labour abuses on a tiny possession thousands of miles from its shores.

An indication of the seriousness of this latest labour abuse report was the roll call. Said Joe T. San Agustin, speaker of the Guam Legislature sit ting in on the hearing, “I’ve attended a lot of public hearings and usually it s a one-man show. This one attract ed three very prominent and power

ful senators, among them the head of the Senate Committee on Territorial Oversights himself, Senator Bennett Johnston.”

Guam, 44 nautical miles to the south, and not included under this compact, is watching the events closely. Guam is seeking common wealth status under which it, too, would control its own labour and immigration. However, labour abuses involving its nearest neighbour are likely to give Congress pause when deciding whether to grant the island more independence.

“Of course I’m concerned,” said San Agustin. “The federal officials will always have that in the back of their minds when dealing with Guam. Even if the situation is differ ent on Guam, it doesn’t matter. All the territories are tied together in their [senators] minds.”

The allegations on Rota first sur faced in July when Pacific Daily News broke the story. According to reports, nearly 200 abuse reports were received over four months by the Catholic social service agency.

The Doromals, whose home became a safe haven for abused workers, also kept records of the nearly daily com plaints, which they later published

in a report, Human Rights Violations and Labor abuses in Rota, Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas.

A Labour Task Force was assem bled on Saipan and its report, released in August, revealed that labour laws and regulations had been repeatedly violated. Some agency heads tasked with aiding contract workers were convicted of taking money for filing visa exten sions and other paperwork. Rota immigration chief Ramon Sablan was convicted of theft and misconduct in public office, and Glenn Manglona, resident head of the Department of Commerce and Labor on Rota was put on administrative leave. He is accused in the report of giving false information to alien workers on labour matters, of being arrogant to aliens who file complaints, and of intimidating those complainants in the disposition of their cases.

The Northern Marianas offer a classic Catch-22. A push to develop economically, combined with a small labour pool, means foreign workers are necessary. Filipino workers, many of whom arrive on a tourist visa and stay, illegally, carry little clout and, fearing prosecution, are

hesitant to file labour complaints.

They skirt the law because they need the work and work is plentiful. This dependency, which has pushed the population up by 138 percent in the last few years, creates an atmosphere of conflicts. “We’re in an impossible situation, the Pacific Daily News quoted Gary Anderson, a missionary on Rota, as saying. Anderson has daily contact with Filipino workers in his work. “The people here hate Filipinos, but they need them. WeTe in the middle of an ethnic clash.”

Congress has given Rota and the

Northern Marianas six months to clean up its act or suffer the conse quences. To help the island remedy the situation, Congress has ear marked $7 million of the annual sup plement to support a direct federal presence on Saipan for enforcing federal labour and immigration laws.

If at the end of six months there are no satisfactory results, the program, said Senator Johnston in a lightly veiled threat, “will become inflexi ble”. ■ ■