By Haidee V. Eugenio
Variety Assistant Editor

EXCLUDING household workers and garment workers, 65 percent of the 12,803 work permits issued by the Department of Labor between September 2005 and August 2006 showed wages of $3.05 to $3.54 an hour.
There were also 110 who were paid $2.77 to $3.04 an hour, and these did not include household workers who are paid a minimum of $300 a month or 96 cents an hour, along with farmers and fishermen.
During the same period, there were 8,261 alien workers — excluding the estimated 8,000 garment workers paid mostly $3.05 an hour — who received wages of $3.05 to $3.54 an hour.
Most of them worked in service, construction, hotel, and restaurant businesses, and would most likely be affected by the current proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour.
The bill, introduced by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif, applies to the CNMI under a different timetable that allows the current minimum wage of $3.05 to be increased to $3.55 an hour 60 days after the signing of the bill into law and in graduated stages until it reaches $7.25 an hour.
Nonresident workers who were paid between $3.55 and $4.04 an hour totaled 1,091, mostly in the service sector.
Only 20 percent or 2,516 of the 12,803 permits issued — excluding those for garment and household workers — were paid between $4.05 and $9.99 an hour.
Only 6 percent or 825 of the permits issued to alien workers were for wages of at $10 to $19.99. They are mostly in the service, hotel and government sectors.
Less than 1 percent received wages of $20 or more an hour mostly in the government, hotel and service industries.
Of the 122 work permits for security guards, only four were paid above $4.04 an hour.
Ninety-four percent of the 460 permits issued to nonresidents working in night clubs were for a $2.77 to $3.54 an hour wage.