A federal judge says a Saipan-based garment factory must pay more than $1 million in a case in which the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission accused the company of national-origin discrimination.

After the EEOC sued Sako Corporation, the company failed to provide a response to the lawsuit, and U.S. District Court Judge Alex R. Munson rendered a judgment in favor of the EEOC in the amount of $1,087,337. The judgment came out of the third federal discrimination lawsuit filed by the EEOC against Sako

In the latest suit, EEOC alleged that approximately 100 Filipino, Thai, and Bangladeshi workers lost their jobs due to their national origin. Previously, Sako had routinely renewed the employment contracts for these workers, most of whom had worked for the factory for over five years, according to the agency. Beginning in July 2001, Sako began notifying these individuals that their employment contracts would not be renewed, citing business necessity as the reason for their loss of jobs. However, Sako brought in replacement workers, primarily less experienced workers from the People's Republic of China, according to the EEOC.

Most of the workers who lost their jobs were paid $3.15 per hour, barely ten cents over the minimum hourly wage of $3.05 per hour in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, where Saipan is located. As a U.S. commonwealth, the chain of fourteen islands in the Western Pacific Ocean that make up the Northern Mariana Islands is self-governing, setting its own minimum wage and its own immigration laws. However, the federal anti-discrimination laws apply to the commonwealth.