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PACIFIC ISLANDS REPORT Pacific Islands Development Program/East-West Center JOBLESS GARMENT WORKERS TO LEAVE SAIPAN By Gemma Q. Casas SAIPAN, CNMI (Marianas Variety, Dec. 27) – Some 261 former employees of the defunct Concorde Garment Manufacturing Inc. are scheduled to be repatriated to China on Friday. Tan Holdings Corp. chief legal counsel Steven Pixley said the group will be flown at company expense on a chartered China-based carrier. Last week, 152 garment workers from Concorde, which was forced to shut down ahead of its scheduled Feb. 6, 2007 closure, flew back to China aboard Air China, which now regularly flies twice weekly between Beijing and Saipan. The more than 400 workers who have flown and are scheduled to fly back to China are part of the 1,400 employees of Concorde who lost their jobs this month following the factory’s decision to cease operations. Nearly a thousand of these workers staged rallies and held other protest actions to pressure the CNMI government to release their tax rebates and reimburse them for the recruitment fees they paid to China-based recruiters to get factory jobs on the island. Concorde refunded the workers’ recruitment fees and has assured them that they will be paid up to Feb. 6 even though the factory is already closed. In related news, the Department of Labor will conduct a job registration tomorrow for all employees of Concorde and its sister company L&T who wish to stay on island and be transferred to other employers. The registration will be held at the multi-purpose center in Susupe starting at 9 a.m. tomorrow. The workers seeking employment transfers are advised to bring a copy of their LIIDS permit, employment contract or temporary work authorizations or any documentation that establishes their legal status in the commonwealth. Marianas Variety:
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