By Haidee V. Eugenio
Variety Assistant Editor

CONGRESSMAN George Miller has introduced legislation increasing the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to 7.25 an hour, which will also apply to the CNMI where the minimum wage has been $3.05 an hour since 1996.
The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007, or H.R. 2, will raise the minimum wage in three increments over two years and two months.
It will extend the minimum wage, on a separate timetable, to the CNMI where, according to Miller, “labor abuses have been rampant.”
The U.S. House of Representatives will vote on the legislation on Wednesday, (Thursday here), as part of the Democratic leadership’s “Six for ‘06” package of policy initiatives for the first 100 legislative hours of the new Congress.
Miller, D-Calif. and now chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, said the minimum wage increase is long overdue.
“It has been nearly a decade since the last minimum wage increase, and minimum wage workers desperately need a raise,” said Miller in a statement on Friday.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Insular Affairs David B. Cohen earlier said the “federalization” of the CNMI is almost certain to occur in the future, but local officials insist that they can still block measures raising the minimum wage and extending federal control over local immigration.
Some 13 million American workers are set to get a pay hike once the measure is enacted into law.
House Majority Leader Stenvy Hoyer, D-Md, called on Congress to swiftly pass the wage hike legislation and for President Bush to sign it.
“The Congress should swiftly pass this bill, especially now that the president has finally agreed it is the right thing to do. It is simply wrong that men and women who work hard and play by the rules live in poverty. We must not delay giving a pay raise to millions of hardworking Americans and I hope that the Senate will follow the House in passing a clean increase in the minimum wage,” said Hoyer.