By Susan Crabtree
The Hill

WASHINGTON — Efforts to bring the U.S. territory in the Northern Mariana islands under federal minimum wage law is creating political headaches for House Democrats because the U.S. has long held American Samoa to a different wage standard.
House Republicans are making plenty of political hay over the disparity between the two territories’ wage policies, lambasting Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Education and Labor Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., for “exempting” American Samoa from their minimum wage bill and claiming that they’re being motivated by the fact that Del Monte’s headquarters are located in Pelosi’s district. Del Monte owns StarKist Tuna, which owns one of two packing plants in Samoa that together employ a large portion of the island’s workers.
But the disparity between American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands’ wage policies is nothing new, and the Democrats’ minimum wage bill does not mention American Samoa in any way.
While the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands has been exempt from any federal minimum wage standards — an exemption that former Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff worked for years to protect — Samoa has operated under federal minimum wage laws for years.
Samoa, however, has a federal wage review board in place that allows it to evaluate the effect incremental increases in its minimum wages would have on the territory’s economy. This wage review board, made up of representatives of Samoa’s business and public sectors who are appointed by the secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor, has set Samoa’s wages and has managed to keep them well below the mainland U.S. minimum wage.
If the CNMI is going to be forced to operate under federal minimum wage law, it wants the same kind of mechanism in place. The House version of the minimum wage bill does not contain the inclusion of a wage review board, but there already is informal talk at the Democratic staff level in the Senate to include one in their version of the bill, according to a Senate Democratic aide.
It doesn’t help the CNMI’s case, however, that the islands’ current governor, Benigno R. Fitial, is a former executive director of a garment factory who Abramoff and DeLay helped become the islands’ speaker of the House in the late 1990s. Fitial also sent a letter to Abramoff’s sentencing judge pleading for leniency for his “personal friend.”
Despite this uphill battle, the CNMI government is still trying to convince Congress to exempt the garment industry from the minimum wage even as it advocates a slim increase for other industries there. For years Abramoff, working on behalf of the garment industry, successfully blocked a minimum wage increase in the CNMI.
In a Jan. 3 letter to Fitial, local island business executives from the local Chamber of Commerce, the Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association (a former Abramoff client), and the Hotel Association of the Northern Mariana Islands, discussed a meeting held that day about the CNMI minimum wage issue. They reported that the group agreed that a “Federal Wage Review Board must be established and members appointed at the earliest possible time.”
“Following the establishment of the Federal Wage Review Board and after a review of the economic study, it was agreed that the CNMI minimum wage may be raised up to 50 cents per hour, with gradual increases thereafter, if the Wage Board finds that the CNMI economy can sustain such increases,” the business groups wrote.
The letter also says that the businesses agree that the manufacturing industry should remain exempt from any federal increase in wages because of recent international trade laws that have weakened the garment industry there and helped cause 12 factories to shut down in the last few years.
“It was the consensus of the group that the Saipan apparel industry may have only 2 years left to operate at the current labor rate,” they wrote. “Therefore, it was recommended that no minimum wage increase be implemented for the manufacturing industry at this time.”
Miller visited the CNMI in 1997 and 1998 and became aware of problems associated with the garment industry there including incidents of workers being forced to work long hours without pay, dangerous and unsanitary working conditions and women being forced into the sex trade. Because it lacked strict immigration and labor laws but benefited from U.S. trade policy, the Northern Marianas became a magnet for cheap foreign workers.
House Democrats first tried to place the CNMI under federal minimum wage standards in 1999, and the islands have been included in every Democratic minimum wage bill since then. Miller spokesman Tom Kiley said his boss is aware of terrible labor abuses in American Samoa as well and acknowledged that the committee will “review wage standards in Samoa to determine how we an ensure the fair treatment of Samoan workers.”
In June 2005, for instance, a former owner of an American Samoa garment factory was sentenced to 40 years in jail in the largest human trafficking case the Justice Department ever prosecuted.
“While the situation in the Northern Marianas has been unique in how widespread, systematic, and cruel it was, Congress needs to make sure that workers are paid and treated fairly in all U.S. states and territories,” Kiley said. “The goal should be to have uniform wage and workplace standards across the U.S. and its territories.”
Miller’s office also released a Jan. 3 letter sent to him from former CNMI Gov. Juan N. Babauta, arguing that a minimum wage increase in the islands is long overdue.
“When economic times were good, we heard that a wage increase would hurt business and job growth,” he wrote. “Now that times are not so good, we hear the same charge. With the continued inaction in the CNMI, I have come to the conclusion that the time has arrived for Congress to mandate minimum wage growth. In fact, we are long overdue.”