July 2002, Samoa Garment Workers Win Class-Action Lawsuit

Samoa Garment Workers Win Class-Action Lawsuit

(source: Sweatshop Watch newsletter, Summer 2002, vol. 8, no. 2)

In April, 270 Vietnamese and Chinese workers who labored in the Daewoosa garment factory on American Samoa won an important legal victory. The High Court of American Samoa ordered the factory to pay $3.5 million to the workers. That amounts to an average award of $13,000 to each worker--more than twice what many of them earned in a year at the factory. The workers paid $3,000-7,000 to get their jobs, and were then often paid below minimum wage and without overtime pay. They also went unpaid for several weeks at a time; faced threats, intimidation and violence; endured poor health and safety conditions; and were withheld food for two days after refusing to work until they were paid.

" Apparel Maker in Samoa Is Told to Pay Workers $3.5 Million "
New York Times
April 20, 2002
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

A court in American Samoa has ordered an apparel company there to pay $3.5 million to hundreds of Chinese and Vietnamese workers who were sometimes paid just $2.25 an hour and were illegally charged thousands of dollars to obtain their jobs.

In a ruling on Tuesday, the High Court of Samoa described widespread minimum-wage violations and harsh conditions at the factory, owned by a company called Daewoosa.

The court found that the workers, who had been promised free room and board, often had to sleep two to a single bed in the factory dormitory, that they were sometimes deprived of food and that they were beaten by company guards for returning to the dormitories after a company-imposed curfew.

The High Court awarded an average of $13,000 to the 270 workers in a case that deeply embarrassed American Samoa, a United States territory that had sought to attract garment factories and immigrant workers. American Samoa is about 2,300 miles south of Hawaii.

For the workers, $13,000 is more than twice what many of them earned each year at the Daewoosa factory, which made sportswear for retailers in the United States and elsewhere.

"We feel very vindicated," said Virginia Lynn Sudbury, a lawyer for the immigrant workers. "These workers have gone through a horrible ordeal." Fearing that Daewoosa might not have the assets to pay the judgment, Ms. Sudbury said she might seek payment from two Vietnamese recruiting companies that the court also held liable.

Marie Lafaele, the lawyer for the factory, which closed 15 months ago, said she would decide on an appeal after talking with the factory's principal owner, Kil-Soo Lee.

"I will just say that I had some due-process concerns throughout the trial," Ms. Lafaele said.

In a twist, Mr. Lee, a South Korean citizen, has been charged in a federal indictment with holding the workers in involuntary servitude through threats and confiscating passports and return plane tickets. Mr. Lee, who faces trial in Hawaii, has maintained his innocence.

The federal indictment quoted a factory manager who said Mr. Lee had ordered him and several subordinates to began a melee with protesting workers, causing one of the workers to lose an eye.

In a 90-page ruling, Associate Justice Lyle L. Richmond wrote, "Weary of endless months of fighting for their basic wages and frightened of Lee, many of the Vietnamese workers requested that they be returned to Vietnam."

The court found that many of the workers' contracts called for pay of $2.25 an hour, even though the minimum wage in American Samoa is $2.60 an hour, about half that of the mainland. Daewoosa often skirted laws requiring time-and-a-half pay for overtime, the court said, by demanding special reimbursements on room and board to offset those payments.

The court also found that Daewoosa and several recruiting companies had illegally charged the immigrants $3,000 to $7,700 to obtain their jobs. One Vietnamese worker even sold her house to pay the fee.

Many weeks, the court wrote, Daewoosa failed to pay workers, and then fired and deported employees who went to court to seek back pay. Once when the employees refused to work until they were paid, the company withheld food for two days.

On another occasion, the court said, when the Department of Labor reached a settlement in which Daewoosa agreed to pay back wages, company officials forced the workers to return the money by threatening to have them deported.

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