Tan Holdings Corporation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tan Holdings Corporation (THC) is a globally-competitive holdings company located in the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). Since 1983, the company's headquarters are located in Saipan. The company's CEO is Henry Tan President is Willie Tan and Executive Vice-President is Jerry Tan. All three are sons of the Charmain of the Board Tan Siu Lin. Tan Holdings is the largest private taxpayer and employer in the CNMI.
In 1972, Dr. Tan Siu Lin and his family moved from Hong Kong to Guam to engage in shipping, real estate and movie distribution businesses. Over the years, the family-run business has evolved to include airline, amusement, fast food, fishing, ground handling service, hotel, information technology, financial services, logistic services, publishing (including the Saipan Tribune, the largest newspaper on the islands), retail, and wholesale subsidiaries.
[edit] Levi Strauss subcontracting
In 1991, Levi Strauss & Co. was embarrassed by a scandal involving six subsidiary factories run by the Tan family on the Northern Mariana Islands, in which Chinese laborors suffered under what the U.S. Department of Labor called "slavelike" conditions. Cited for sub-minimal wages, seven-day work week schedules with twelve-hour shifts, poor living conditions and other indignities (including the alleged removal of passports and the virtual imprisonment of workers), Tan would eventually pay what was then the largest fines in U.S. labor history, distributing more than $9 million in restitution to some 1200 employees.[1][2][3] At the time, Tan factories produced 3% of Levi's jeans with the "Made in the U.S.A." label. Levi Strauss had no knowledge of the offenses, severed ties to the Tan family, and instituted labor reforms and inspection practices in its offshore facilities.
[edit] DeLay/Abramoff controversy
The business practices of Tan Holdings Corporation gained new prominence during the American political scandals of Congressman Tom DeLay and lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Both were involved in protecting sweatshops and the economic control of CNMI by Tan family businesses. Because the Northern Mariana Islands are part of the U.S. Commonwealth, goods can be produced with the "Made in the U.S.A." title, but political pressure has allowed the islands to be exempt from federal immigration and labor laws. ABC News and Al Franken have pointed out that garment workers of THC have been forced to have abortions in order to keep their jobs.
[edit] External links
- Official website
- Stranger Than Paradise: How Tom DeLay's deregulatory ideology stretched to the island of Saipan by Lou Dubose and Jan Reid
- Abramoff, sweatshops, China, DeLay & the GOP at Daily Kos
- Sweating it out in Saipan from the Hong Kong Weekly Standard
- PBS: Moyers on America: Capital Crimes