In addition, Concorde issued checks amounting to close to $1 million to cover the recruitment fees that about 800 of its 1,046 Chinese workers claimed they paid to recruiters in their homeland to get jobs at the factory, Saipan's largest garment manufacturing plant, San Nicolas said today.

Members of the group said they paid up to $3,000 each to get the work.

Upon learning they were losing their jobs just three months after arriving on Saipan, the workers, who are mostly from Fujian province in China, said they don't want to go home empty-handed.

The workers from China staged a hunger strike after the closing was announced last week. A sit-down strike was also held, stalling the shipment of garments from the island to the U.S. mainland.

Steven Pixley, chief legal counsel of Tan Holdings Corp., which manages the factory, said Concorde lost millions of dollars when the workers paralyzed its operations, prompting the company to give in to their demands.

Concorde's other workers come mostly from the Philippines, Nepal and Bangladesh.

Nearly a dozen factories have closed on Saipan in recent months since the end of garment quotas for the U.S. from other countries.