Federal and state lawsuits filed last week may have the effect of finally holding someone accountable for the abusive sweatshop labor practices championed during the '90s in the U.S. trust territories of the Northern Marianas Islands.

The sweatshops have operated under a legal loophole that effectively exempts the islands from U.S. laws regarding minimum wage, child labor, working conditions, and worker safety. The exemptions essentially allow clothing manufacturers to spend the same sums on labor they ordinarily would by contracting to Asian sweatshops--but with a "made in U.S.A." label on the garments.

In a federal suit filed in Los Angeles, 18 giant clothing retailers--including Nordstrom's, The GAP, J.C. Penney, Sears, Wal-Mart, J Crew, Gymboree, Target, Mervyn's, The Limited, and Tommy Hilfiger--were charged with violating federal racketeering laws by benefiting from the foreign-owned sweatshops in the Northern Marianas, and of trying to fool American consumers into thinking the clothes were made under U.S. labor standards. The RICO racketeering statutes specifically prohibit peonage and involuntary servitude, and allow suits against anyone benefiting from such an enterprise.

A second suit filed in the Northern Marianas Islands sought missing overtime pay for 25,000 past and present workers, and a third suit, filed by unions and human rights groups in California state court in San Francisco, also targeted the retailers for "fraudulent, unfair, and illegal business acts and practices."

Conditions in the Marianas' sweatshops are horrific. Women are lured from China, Thailand, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and other Asian countries--often with the promise of living and working in the United States. The lawsuit details one such offer as being able to work "a short train ride from Los Angeles," and describes women paying up to $7,000 in recruitment fees. Once they reached Saipan, the main island in the Northern Marianas chain, workers found themselves toiling eight hours a day for $3 an hour, then being forced to "donate" an additional four hours each day (reducing the gross pay to $2 an hour). In off hours the workers were not allowed to leave a crowded housing compound patrolled by armed guards. The Women were forced to live 20 per room, eat poor-quality food, and were charged by the company for housing and food through further reductions in their pay. Women were not allowed to date or marry, and pregnant women were forced to have abortions. Those who broke the rules were beaten.

The influential Seattle law firm of Preston Gates & Ellis has played a pivotal role in advocating for these conditions, having signed a $4.5 million contract with the government of the Marianas to lobby Congress against applying U.S. labor laws to the islands. The argument for the Marianas' different status--just like the lower minimum wage and tax exemptions in Puerto Rico, teen minimum wage laws in the U.S., and urban enterprise zones--is that they create jobs in impoverished areas and give opportunities to those who wouldn't otherwise get them. Technically, this is true--but it's not U.S. citizens who are getting these jobs, and the opportunities they're getting are conditions that are inexcusable in any country, including the U.S. Last year, the U.S. Dept. of the Interior investigated working conditions in the Marianas, was appalled at what they found, and urged lawmakers to apply federal minimum wage laws to the territory, so far to no avail.

Frighteningly, the same arguments used to justify the Marianas' sweatshops could also be used to undermine wage, worker safety, and environmental laws in, say, Seattle. In the global economy, where everyone competes in a race to the bottom with everyone else, it's not much of a leap to imagine influential corporations--like the ones dominating the political landscape in the Northern Marianas--and apologists like Preston Gates & Ellis explaining that global competitiveness requires that we make a few sacrifices. The solution is exactly the opposite: raise working standards everywhere, so that nobody is being exploited. Last week's lawsuits are a welcome first step.