Bush signs bill extending US labor law to Marianas

By MATTHEW DALY Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Workers in the Mariana Islands will receive the protection of U.S. labor law under a bill signed Thursday by President Bush.

Debate over whether to extend federal labor and immigration law to the Marianas, in the northwestern Pacific, had been sullied by reports of sweatshop labor and past associations with the lobbying scandal surrounding Jack Abramoff, whose firm was hired by the islands to oppose the changes.

The measure, approved by Congress last month, creates a federally run guest-worker program in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, which includes Saipan and 13 other islands north of Guam.

It also gives the commonwealth a delegate in the House with limited voting powers. Currently Guam, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia have a delegate in the House.

The bill also designates a federal wilderness area in Washington state, creates heritage areas in Illinois and New York, and boosts projects to create a Washington, D.C., memorial to President Dwight Eisenhower and a special commission to study a possible National Museum of the American Latino.

It also commemorates a site in Bainbridge Island, Wash., where Japanese-Americans were forced from their homes on their way to prison camps during World War II.

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif, chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, said the Marianas have long been plagued by business practices that promote corruption and exploitation.

"For many years, this system and its exploiters did great harm to guestworkers and their families, and the islands' society and economy have been stifled as well," Miller said. "Those who profited from this exploitation depended on the notorious and corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his many supporters in Congress who blocked reform for over a decade."

Abramoff has pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges and is cooperating with a wide-ranging federal investigation.

The commonwealth's governor, Benigno Fitial, criticized the new law, saying it doesn't reflect recent government steps to end labor abuses. He also complained that turning over immigration and guest worker controls to bureaucrats 8,500 miles away in Washington would impede efforts to attract outside investment to revive the islands' faltering economy.

The new law "will do serious damage to our economy - increasing the likelihood that we will remain in an economic depression for many years to come," Fitial said, adding that he is considering challenging the law in court.

The Washington state measure would designate approximately 106,000 acres of national forest near Seattle as federal wilderness, blocking road-building and other development.