Part IV: DeLay's Unregulated Pacific "Paradise"

By Stephen Pizzo, AlterNet. Posted May 15, 2002.

Read Part I: DeLay's Axis of Influence

Read Part II: DeLay's Judge Dread

Read Part III: DeLay's Godfather

DeLay's North Pacific Unregulated "Paradise"

As Tom DeLay preached his pro-business/anti-regulation theology in the US, his model of perfection was far from the mainland. The U.S. protectorate of the Northern Mariana Islands -- 14 islands in the North Pacific -- have become something of a free-enterprise petting zoo for DeLay and those he wishes to convert to his way of thinking.

At the end of World War II, the U.S. acquired the islands, which are located off the coast of booming Asia. To encourage development and self-sufficiency Congress exempted the islands from the very kinds of U.S. business regulations and oversight DeLay despised. Even today the island's minimum wage is only $3.05. Other work and safety regulations either do not apply at all or are rarely enforced.

In short, the Marianas embodied many of the key ideals DeLay and other House Republicans were pushing in their 1994 Contract With America.

For Asian sweatshop operators, the Marianas became the Promised Land incarnate. Since the islands were officially U.S. territory, garment factories there were able to tag their products with the coveted "Made in the USA" label. No rules, no regulators, no inspectors, no health and safety laws. What more could a sweatshop operator ask for?

The opportunity was quickly recognized by Asian sweatshop operators like Hong Kong's Tan Holdings, run by garment mogul Willie Tan. Deep in the lush jungles, far from the island's white beaches and luxury hotels, garment factories quickly set up shop. They staffed their factories with workers from China and the Philippines with promises of work in the US. But, workers soon discovered that the work contracts they signed consigned them to near-indentured servitude deep in the Marianas steamy jungles. Wages were low, hours were long. The companies docked workers' pay for housing, food, medical treatments and other charges. The low wages and high deductions made it nearly impossible for workers to save enough money to return home.

None of this was a secret back home in the U.S. In 1998, ABC, CNN, the BBC and the New York Times each confirmed reports of forced labor, sex slaves and domestic forced servitude among the Marianas' so-called "guest workers."

According to the US Department of Labor, the indigenous US population of Marianas have an unemployment rate that hovers continuously around 14%. The unemployment rate of the island's 40,000 so-called guest workers on the other hand is only 5%.

Human rights groups, long up in arms over the work conditions on the islands, charged that sweatshop operators did not appreciate it when their female employees got pregnant. Numerous allegations of forced abortions surfaced over the years.

The protests began to reach the ears of Congress. Rep. George Miller, (D-Ca) and others began to demand that US labor and environmental laws be applied to the Marianas. Tom DeLay and his friend Jack Abramoff swung into action and fashioned a vigorous and largely successful counter-attack.

Denying the reports that workers were being mistreated, Abramoff said the Marianas' unregulated environment was in fact a success story and a model for economic development. He said that efforts to regulate the islands' garment factories by some members of Congress like Miller were nothing less than immoral. "These are immoral laws designed to destroy the economic lives of a people," Abramoff said. He went on to compare the proposed laws with the Nuremberg laws that restricted German Jews under the Nazis.

The Marianas became a pedal-to-the-metal cause for DeLay and another cash cow for Abramoff. Abramoff and his team, which now included DeLay's former chief of staff Bill Jarrell, swung into action. They arranged junkets to the islands for scores of Republicans on The Hill. DeLay himself spent New Years Day 1998 in the Marianas with his wife and daughter and his then Chief of Staff, Ed Buckham.

Another of Abramoff's Mariana lobbyists was Patrick Pizzella who, believe it or not, is now serving in the Bush Administration as assistant secretary of Labor. It was Pizzella's job to organize Abramoff's political junkets to the islands

Despite the growing public awareness of work conditions in the islands, Tom DeLay's defense of the status quo remained unshaken. In 1998 DeLay co-authored a letter with House Majority Leader Dick Army (R-TX). The two men, writing to the islands' governor, expressed how "impressed" they were with the Marianas' "commitment to advancing the principles of free markets, enterprise, tax reform and other innovative approaches to governance."

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