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EIGHT Hong Kong-run garment factories have been accused in a US$1 billion (HK$7.8 billion) lawsuit of recruiting Chinese labourers to work in 'sweatshops' producing high-fashion clothes in a US territory on the edge of Asia.

 Workers told the Sunday Morning Post they toiled in hot and crowded factories and claimed they were pressured to meet strict quotas.

 They said they were forced to work overtime without pay, lived in crowded and substandard conditions, were fed appalling food and suffered abuse from their Hong Kong supervisors.

 They had paid thousands of dollars for jobs recruiters claimed were in America but turned out to be on the remote and underdeveloped Northern Mariana Islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

 For the minimum wage of US$3.05 an hour - US$2.10 less than in the rest of the US - they stitched and assembled clothes for upmarket brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, Gap, department store Sears and Roebuck and toddlers' outfitters OshKosh.

 Polo Ralph Lauren is produced by at least two of the Hong Kong companies named in the lawsuits but is not among the companies being sued.

 The lawsuit alleges housing in the Saipan factories was 'rat and insect-infested' and 'significantly lacks clean, running water'. Food often contained insects and was 'rotten, unappetising and generally unhealthy'. Pay deductions for food and board were illegal and excessive, it says.

 Hong Kong factories opening in Saipan, as a Commonwealth of the US, are allowed to sew labels declaring 'Made in the US' or 'Made in Northern Mariana Islands/USA' on to garments and ship their products to America duty-free. They are exempt from quotas limiting clothing imported from the SAR or China.

 President Bill Clinton has hit out at conditions on the island as 'inconsistent with our country's values' and dispatched a special representative to hold talks with local authorities this week in a bid to raise the minimum wage as well as improve work standards.

 A sacked worker from an SAR company said he witnessed a supervisor beat a cleaner for trying to escape from a yard where he was locked after being accused of causing trouble by complaining about swollen hands. The firm denied the allegation.

 A Post investigation found mainland workers at another company claimed they were owed seven fortnightly pay cheque worth more than US$2,000 for labouring in sweltering conditions.

 Their wages were still said to be in arrears at the Micronesia Garment Factory, owned by Hong Kong's Diorva Knitters Ltd, despite the massive class-action lawsuits filed days earlier.

 Federal Department of Labour officials who raided the company to inspect its books this week after a tip-off from the Post confirmed workers were owed back pay.

 They revealed another factory, US-CNMI, owned by SAR businessman Victor Fong Yuen-tak and affiliated with his Yee Tung Corporation, had owed US$1.14 million in back wages to 419 workers and had now agreed to pay them.

 An estimated 25,000 workers, mostly from China, who work on Saipan or who have left, are covered by the lawsuit. As well as seeking compensation from 22 factories on the island, the actions filed in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Saipan also target the fashion labels contracting them.

 A worker who joined the legal action to sue a factory owned by Hong Kong tycoon Willie Tan Wai-lai's Tan Holdings, a subsidiary of his Luen Thai Group, said she had passed out on the job a few times due to the pressure and abuse by her bosses.

 The group, which has the largest plant on the tropical island, employs 3,000 workers. At least 5,000 workers are estimated to work for the Hong Kong companies.

 Lawyer Timothy Skinner, who filed the lawsuit in Saipan which has so far attracted 50 plaintiffs, described the workers as 'indentured labour'.

 Tan Holdings chief legal counsel Steven Pixley said the lawsuit had a 'political intent', motivated by labour unions, garment factories on the US mainland and Washington seeking a 'federal takeover' of Saipan.

 Governor Pedro Tenorio vowed to crack down on factories which continued to treat migrant workers badly.

 'No matter what you do there's a few who are careless and disregard the law. These people who think they can get away with it, we have told them to shape up or we will close them,' he said.

 The Saipan Garment Manufacturers' Association took action on Thursday against two of its Hong Kong members, temporarily suspending Micronesian Garment Manufacturing and NET Corporation's Suntex Garment Company, owned by Hong Kong resident Li Kwok-wing.

 Executive director Richard Pierce said conditions had improved and the lawsuits were based on old allegations in federal government reports and did not reflect the 'current reality'.

 'The [government] reports were highly exaggerated, embellished and unreal and are being used in the lawsuit, so it itself is erroneous,' he said.



HK firms in $7.8b sweatshop suit