Slavery is common.
The ILO reports that 12.3 million people live as forced laborers. That is a lot of stories of abuse.
Some stories are easy to talk about. Everybody is outraged by stories of child slavery, sexual slavery and examples of chained-to-the-wall obvious slavery.
More hidden and common are cases where work is coerced through an uneven power structure denying workers rights, information, justice and hope. The systems of abuse behind these cases go by many names.
Guest Worker Program is one of them.
Every Guest Worker program invites abuse, corruption and embraces an iteration of slavery. Even at their best, they create a permanent underclass. When labor without rights is legalized, those workers will always be exploited. The desire to control others is in the shadow material of human nature.
It is dangerous stuff and why we embrace the rule of law to keep this impulse in check.
Sometime that doesn’t work. People are literally or figuratively enslaved. The CNMI is a case in point.
We can end the abuse, if we don’t blow it.
To the jump...
For more than 25 years, a system of human trafficking and abuse has flourished on the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), a US Territory in the Western Pacific some 40 miles North of Guam.
Tom DeLay used to call the CNMI his "...perfect petri dish of capitalism". For Tom and those on his team, the CNMI was a shinning ideal—a playground of experimentation. And it was an experiment in unrestricted greed, abuse and exploitation.
What grew in DeLay’s Petri dish were decades of well documented, detailed and irrefutable cases of sweatshops, forced prostitution, rape, money laundering, gambling, graft, corruption and incompetence. This was reported to Congress multiple times since 1985. By 1995 bi-partisan Legislation was moving to end the abuse. Then, the Pirates of Saipan hired Jack Abramoff to block any reform. It worked. For more than twelve years the abuse has continued.
Now the 110th Congress has an opportunity to end the abuse, reform the CNMI and provide justice to long-exploited workers on this rogue US Territory. Next Thursday, July 19, the Senate’s Committee on Energy and Natural Resources will hold a hearing on S. 1634 (PDF), a Bill introduced to reform the corrupt system on the CNMI. It is a start. It needs some improvements. It should pass the Senate, if only so a stronger Bill can be passed in the House (more on this in a moment).
Real reform is desperately needed. The CNMI economic system is a failure. It is also addictive.
DeLay’s Petri dish is where one can examine the dark side of Globalization. It is where you can study the impact that a permanent sub-class of imported workers forced into neo-slavery can have on a population and economy that becomes dependent on the low cost labor and a population of modern "slaves".
It is not a pretty picture.
The Guest Workers are not the only victims on the CNMI. The failed economic system is also destroying the eco-system of the island, the infrastructure and the culture of the indigenous Chamorro/Carolinian population. A distorted reality has been created.
The CNMI Guest Worker program has created a culture of addiction. This is artfully explained in a new book, Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the Global Economy by John Bowe. This is an important work and I encourage everyone to pre-order a copy. It will challenge you, depress you and provided you a better understanding why slavery is on the rise in our shiny new global economy here at home and around the planet.
In his book, John spends a lot of time examining Tom DeLay’s petri dish of capitalism. It is an ugly place masked by myth, prejudice, tropical beauty and a clash of cultures. The foreign investors, indigenous Chamorro/Carolinian population and relocated US Citizens from the mainland share the obscene and unacknowledged dependence on a permanent underclass of workers.
They can not let go even as the system destroys them. Nobody, it seems, can imagine how the CNMI would survive if they can not have a steady stream of imported workers to exploit.
And there are millions of workers around the globe willing to take a chance on the abuse. Tens of millions of people migrate "legally" and illegally each year in the hopes that they will survive a hard, abusive work environment. That they will save enough, send enough money back home to improve the lives and future of their families and themselves.
Some really do succeed. Many more do not.
The trick for those running Guest Worker Programs from Kuwait to Iraq to Saipan is to keep turning over the population so that new workers are always arriving to replace older workers who started to think that they should have some Rights.
New workers have to come in and old workers have to be deported. That is how a Guest Worker Program works and that is why they are always abusive. When workers are allowed to stay for five, ten, fifteen of more years, they begin to expect Rights. This is especially true if the Guest Worker Program is in a place where everybody else has rights and other immigrants have a pathway to citizenship.
Perhaps now would be a good time to quote a Republican on the subject of immigration:
"Never under any condition should this nation look at an immigrant as primarily a labor unit. He should always be looked at primarily as a future citizen."
-Theodore Roosevelt, 1917
TR was right. Our human history is one of migration—the free movement of goods, ideas and people. Whoever we are, it is safe to assume that our ancestors were part of that history of migration. The strength of America is our embrace of this continuing story of our shared humanity.
People come. They bring new ideas and energy. They work. They struggle. They build stronger communities. When they have a pathway to citizenship we all benefit. When we block the organic movement of people, we create artificial and corrupt economic systems where it is OK to abuse "some" people.
A Guest Worker Program institutionalizes that abuse and gives it a patina of legality. We dodge a bullet recently when the proposed Guest Worker Program for the mainland was defeated. It is hard to imagine how to make things worse for undocumented workers in the USA, but that would have done it.
At least the current system does not legally deny rights to undocumented workers. It is a bizarre twist that somebody entering the USA to work illegally has more rights than the legal Guest Workers who have been on the CNMI for years and years. Another bitter irony is that the recently defeated immigration Bill would have provided a pathway to Citizenship to illegal immigrants in the USA, while S. 1634 would deny that right to the legal long-time imported workers toiling under the US Flag on the CNMI. This should be fixed when final Reform Legislation is passed.
The labor system flourishing under the US Flag on the Marianas Islands is insane.
Here is a quick example.
The total population of the CNMI is said to be around 84,000 (give or take ten thousand or so). Roughly 20,000 are Chamorro/Carolinian US Citizens. Most households have a maid. Many of them also have their own farm-workers to tend the "ranch", or plot of land, the family owns. These workers have made up the bottom rung of the CNMI wage structure for years. Their employers could pay them $300 a month and from that wage deduct money for room and board. There was no such thing as extra pay for working over-time. In fact, over-time was part of the gig. Not only that, but folks would "lend" out their maid or farm-worker to help out friends and family. (Perhaps this is what Bush meant when he talked about an "Ownership" society, but I digress.)
Now the game is changing.
Earlier this year, the 110th Congress passed the Minimum Wage Bill. On July 25, maids and farm-workers on the CNMI will get a raise. They will go from an average of $1.80 an hour to $3.55 an hour. They should also get overtime.
Naturally this has the Pirates of Saipan in a snit. The last thing they want is to have to pay money to these workers they’ve abused for so long. So they are carving out exceptions. Now only those maids who do not live with a family will get overtime. Those who live with their employers will be exempt from overtime and the CNMI Government is increasing the amount an employer can deduct for room and board.
If that wasn’t enough, they are also making it easy to fire and then deport maids and farm-workers. They are expecting a rash of these firings:
San Nicolas said many employers are inquiring how they can terminate their houseworkers or farmers because they cannot afford to pay $3.55 an hour.
"If they do decide to terminate, they should give the employees 30-day notice and submit the letter to the department," he pointed out. [snip]
Many employers, mostly locals, find it hard to let go of their houseworkers because they have been serving their families for many years now.
That last bit is important.
These workers have been on the CNMI for a long time. They have been raising the children of the indigenous people. These Children often learn more about the culture of their maid than know of their own indigenous Chamorro/Carolinian culture.
More than that, the imported workers on the CNMI have built the place. They do the work—from maids to Teachers to well, everything. Without imported workers, the entire place would collapse.
These workers are the majority of the population. They have roots in the CNMI. For many it is their home. There are thousands of US Citizens, under the age of 18, with parents who are Guest Workers. Their parents can be deported from the CNMI at the drop of a hat. In a bizarre twist, these young US Citizens are then forced to leave with their parents. Their rights as US Citizens are ignored and the CNMI may be the only part of America where US Citizens can be exiled if they are under 18 and have the "wrong" parents.
My friend Wendy Doromal is spending her summer back on the CNMI. She is documenting what is happening there: Tonight. Today. NOW.
She sent me this note:
Tonight we attended a dinner hosted by members of the Bangladeshi community. They must have cooked all day, preparing a feast of delicious traditional dishes. We were seated at a table as honored guests and the gentlemen served us. They stood behind our chairs rushing to give us clean napkins, more drinks, bringing new dishes, and filling our plates. Never have I experienced such hospitality!
After dinner I was able to interview seven of the families with U.S. citizen children. The CNMI immigration policies also create hardship for these children and their families. Here are just a few highlights of the sad findings:
- All of the parents with U.S. citizen children live daily in an unstable world of fear waiting to see if there will be a federal takeover of immigration. They fear being deported if they find themselves out of work.
- Children do not want to leave the CNMI, and in fact, not one I interviewed and video-taped could speak, read or write their native language. These school age children could read, write and speak only English. Their parents said that the children would be put back to grade one, no matter their age, if they return to Bangladesh.
- The healthcare, education and quality of life for the families will be tremendously reduced if they have to return to Bangladesh. Parents will have difficulty finding employment to support their families.
- The children do not want to leave. They have lived here in the CNMI all of their lives and consider it their home. They are anxious about having to return to Bangladesh, which is a foreign country to them.
- A Bangladeshi professional who worked for the World Bank, the United Nations, and the CNMI government stated that both of his sons were scholars in the CNMI. When it came time to compete and represent the CNMI in the spelling bee on Guam, immigration laws prohibited him and his wife from traveling with the children.
Wendy is doing heroic work. I’ll share more in the future. It is important that she is there—talking with the workers, hearing their stories and their hopes for the future. Most of these workers have been on the CNMI, on American soil, for years. They have more than earned a pathway to Citizenship. They are the backbone of the CNMI economy. The Island can not function without imported workers.
The only question is whether they will have rights or maintain their status as a permanent underclass in the land that has become their home. That is what the 110th Congress will decide.
Things are getting very bad. The Pirates of Saipan are concerned that Reform Legislation will grant Citizenship to imported workers that they still consider as disposable. They are working very hard to once again block reform or at least shape any Legislation to their favor. They have three main goals:
- Block a pathway to US Citizenship to ANY Guest Worker on the CNMI, including those with children who are US Citizens.
- Maintain a steady flow of new, time-limited Guest Workers to maintain their corrupt economic system, and
- Maintain the ability to have a special CNMI travel Visa that will allow local control of customs for visitors from China, Russia and elsewhere.
In a final reform legislation, The Pirates of Saipan should lose on all three of their goals. One of my concerns with the current draft of S. 1634 is that it could let the Pirates win on them. That would be a betrayal of the workers, our Constitution and American values.
It is important to pass real reform and end the addiction to Guest Workers on the CNMI. And we have to act quickly. Time is running out.
The Pirates of Saipan have recently realized that the best way to run a Guest Worker Program is to have constant churn. They are regretting that they have allowed so many worker to stay there for so long. As a result, something akin to Ethnic Cleansing is happening under the US Flag on our rogue Pacific Territory.
Perhaps Ethnic Cleansing is the wrong term, because the goal is not to remove everybody. The goal is to remove people who have grown to expect rights, who have learned how to work together across cultural boundaries and have learned how to organize and fight back. The goal is to remove empowered workers and then replace them with some of the millions of fresh workers who will be easily exploited. New local CNMI Legislation will mandate that future Guest Workers have to leave after three years. This will be a hardship for those who expect stability and competence, but it will prevent future workers from learning that in America they are suppose to have rights.
A better term might be Ethnic Weeding and Re-Seeding. The current removal of long-time workers is brutal. It is why Buddhi Lal Dhimal—a Nepalese guest worker on the CNMI for the last 10 years—to set himself on fire and died earlier this year:
Stopping this abuse is why I keep writing about this small failed economic experiment in the Western Pacific. It is why I need your help.
Contact your Senator, especially members of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Urge them to support S. 1634 and encourage them to support amendments that would:
- Create a pathway to Citizenship for Guest Workers who have been on the CNMI for more than five years—and a Green Card for all workers with children who are US Citizens.
- Outline a clear appeals process for any worker denied Immigration Status and/or other rights by the local CNMI Government through new or existing Federal systems of appeals.
- Mandate that all CNMI entry visa programs—both work and tourist—are run by the Federal Government. (To allow the local CNMI Government to run a tourist visa program is to allow human trafficking.)
- Mandate random, spot check interviews of guest workers and tourists as they arrive and leave the CNMI to ensure that they were (and are not) victims of abuse.
There are other changes that should be made as well, but S. 1634 is a start. It is my hope that a stronger Bill can come out of the House and the final legislation will be real reform. We have to use S. 1634 as the legislative vehicle for reform because the Ethnic Weeding of workers is well underway on the CNMI.
Next week, on July 25, the new minimum wage will kick in. The Pirates of Saipan will use it to fire thousands of long-time workers. Then they will have 30 days to find a new job. Then they will be on a 45 day clock to deportation.
That gives us 75 days (until October 8) to pass a final bill and have it signed into law. If it takes longer, more workers will be cleansed for the CNMI and denied justice.
We need to stand with them as they fight for justice.
For a very long time, Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff and the Republican Party blocked reform. If we fail now it will be our fault.
Let’s not fail.
Cheers.