Al Meyerhoff dies at 61; labor lawyer handled landmark sweatshop lawsuit

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-meyerhoff23-2008dec23,0,3878204.story

By Valerie J. Nelson
December 23, 2008
Al Meyerhoff, a prominent environmental and labor lawyer whose landmark cases included the 2002 settlement of a class-action lawsuit against some of America's biggest clothing retailers that alleged sweatshop abuses on the island of Saipan, has died. He was 61.

Meyerhoff died Sunday of complications related to cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said his wife, Marcia Brandwynne. More than a month ago, he learned that a rare blood disorder that had been diagnosed a year ago had turned into leukemia.



Natural Resources Defense Council
Al Meyerhoff, a prominent environmental and labor lawyer whose landmark cases included the 2002 settlement of a class-action lawsuit against some of America’s biggest clothing retailers that alleged sweatshop abuses on the island of Saipan, has died at the age of 61.


The lawsuit filed on behalf of 30,000 immigrant Saipan workers alleged a pattern of long hours, low pay and other objectionable working conditions in garment factories that produce more than $1 billion of clothing annually for U.S. stores. Recruited mainly from nearby Asian nations, workers toiled in what Meyerhoff called "indentured servitude."

The case was "far and away the most ambitious litigation ever brought involving sweatshops," Meyerhoff said on National Public Radio in 1999.

The $20-million out-of-court settlement of the suit known as Doe vs. the Gap involved more than 20 major U.S. retailers. The companies did not admit wrongdoing but agreed to adopt a code of conduct for the workplace and create a fund to pay for back wages and independent monitoring of factories on Saipan, an island about 3,700 miles southwest of Hawaii that is a U.S. commonwealth.

Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, "fought an often lonely battle" to clean up the island's working conditions and improve its minimum wage, Meyerhoff wrote last year in his blog for the Huffington Post.


FULL story at link.

[musette_sf]

1. ah, Saipan, aka the "US"

where sweatshop clothing can legally be tagged "Made In USA". be sure to remember that POS Bug Man DeLay for this.

Jack Abramoff CNMI scandal

Jack Abramoff and his law firm were paid at least $6.7 million by the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) from 1995 to 2001. After Abramoff paid for Tom DeLay and his staffers to go on trips to the CNMI, they crafted policy that extended exemptions from federal immigration, labor, and minimum wage laws to the islands' industries while allowing them to continue manufacturing goods with the "Made in the USA" label.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saipan

Godspeed Al.