Contrary to almost everyone

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Contrary to almost everyone else who’s ever reported on the matter, Rep. Tom DeLay claimed that he saw no evidence of sweatshops, forced labor or forced abortions when he went on a junket to Saipan in the mid ’90s. Now a filipino woman who worked there at the time has come forward to say that she can attest to it all first-hand and that DeLay must not have been looking very hard.

Just to provide a little backstory on this, back in the day (that is, the day(s) when DeLay was there) garment factories could import cloth and workers to Saipan to work in the island’s garment factories free of US labor laws, minimum wage laws and tariffs. Then they could ship the stuff off with “Made in the USA” labels.

DeLay was there courtesy of Jack Abramoff to fight the good fight against efforts to make the garment industry on the island come into line with US labor laws.

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