US companies use 'slave'

labour on Pacific isle - claim

FAMOUS manufacturers and retail ers are selling clothing made by Asian women who live as indentured slaves in the American commonwealth of Saipan, a lawyer for about 50,000 workers said. The workers and human rights groups were to file lawsuits in California and Saipan, an island north of Guam in the South Pacific, over the sale of these goods, many marked Made in the USA, said attorney A 1 Meyerhoff.

The Limited, Wal-Mart, Sears, The Gap, Tommy Hilfiger, JC Penney, and the May Company, which are among 18 companies named in the lawsuits, either had no comment or did not immediate ly return calls. The lawsuits accuse the companies of violating federal law by engaging in a racketeering conspiracy with the foreign-owned subcontractors in Saipan in the past decade.

The subcontractors allegedly force people to work up to 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and pay them below the minimum wage of SUS3.OS ($A4.81). In addition to workers from China and the Philippines, the labour force on Saipan also comes from Bangladesh and Thailand. The factories in which they work are owned mostly by Chinese, Japanese and Korean sub contractors to the US companies. ■