I'm happy to say that MzNicky will be doing some guest blogging at TGW, starting today! Following is one of her first posts (which I mistakenly attributed to Al Franken earlier this am, sorry about that MzNicky.)
The following post draws from Al Franken's book, The Truth (With Jokes)
Tom and Jack’s Excellent Adventure in the Skin Trade
by MzNicky
The South Pacific island of Saipan, along with its neighbors, has been known since 1986 as the American Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). Its inhabitants boast US citizenship, as like much of the rest of the US, its population includes immigrants from other lands, such as China, the Philippines, and Indonesia.
Unlike for other US citizens, however, the minimum wage in this tropical paradise is $3.15 per hour. Also unlike for other US citizens, for the mostly-female laborers in what one might term the “sweatshops” of this American Commonwealth, the workday often lasts 14 hours, and the workers are housed in rat-infested barracks with contaminated water. (Their working status has been characterized by one government official as being, basically, “indentured servants.” As in, slaves.) But not only do these women—some as young as age 14— spend their days producing garments that will subsequently bear the “Made in the USA” label, they also function as “involuntary sex slaves, servicing government officials, sailors on shore leave, and Japanese businessmen.”
So why isn’t something being done about this? Well, something was being done about it, at one time, back in the 1990s. Reports of these abuses had received attention on Capitol Hill, but somehow, any proposed legislation to institute worker protections in Saipan got all tangled up in committee and just never saw the light of day.
That’s because, uncoincidentally, not long after the 1994 Congressional elections brought Tom DeLay into prominence, 80 or so “conservative junketeers” visited the American Commonwealth in the mid-90s, playing golf and otherwise enjoying themselves at the Hyatt Regency Saipan, courtesy of one Jack Abramoff’s arranging for the Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association and the CNMI government to pick up the tab.
Also uncoincidentally, the Mariana Islands was the vacation destination of choice for Tom DeLay and his family, where they enjoyed an all-expenses-paid Christmas holiday in 1997. According to Brian Ross of ABC News’ 20/20, who originally reported on the story in 1998 and 1999, the head of the Saipan garment manufacturers, Willie Tan, bragged to an undercover reporter for the Global Survival Network that he was "close to Delay" and that his new pal had assured Tan that “the proposed laws on Saipan would be killed.”
In 1998, DeLay gave credit where credit’s due: “When one of my closest and dearest friends, Jack Abramoff, your most able representative in Washington, DC, invited me to the islands, I wanted to see firsthand the free market success and the progress and reform you have made.” DeLay’s close, dear friend, Jack Abramoff, received $7 million for services rendered in the Saipan adventures.
Delay Abramoff Culture of Corruption Al Franken
Posted by egalia for MzNicky
