By Gemma Q. Casas
Variety News Staff

SPEAKER Oscar M. Babauta and Vice Speaker Justo S. Quitugua yesterday expressed the fear that federalization of the local minimum wage may happen sooner than expected now that congressional Democrats have attached their wage hike measure as a “rider” to the emergency spending bill for the Iraq war.
The measure will gradually increase the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour to $7.25, which will also apply to the CNMI where the wage rate has been $3.05 since 1996.
Press Secretary Charles P. Reyes Jr. also expressed concern over the latest development.
“When it’s a rider, it’s not given much thought,” he said.
Quitugua, D-Saipan, said the U.S. lawmakers behind the “rider” are “very clever.”
“We haven’t really seen the final provisions of the Iraq funding bill, but we were told that it would include a national wage hike, and that includes the CNMI,” Quitugua told Variety in an interview yesterday.
“I don’t think anybody will object to giving more funds to Iraq, and that’s why they are attaching this as a rider. That’s how clever these people in Washington, D.C. are,” he added.
The speaker, for his part, said if the CNMI is included in the national wage hike agenda, the islands will not have a fair chance to defend its proposal to have a tiered-wage system similar to that of American Samoa.
“We have not seen the draft. The CNMI would probably be entangled in the plain language (of the bill). (If that happens) it is a disaster for the CNMI, and especially for the private sector. We want to follow American Samoa’s tiered-wage system,” said Babauta, Covenant-Saipan.
Reports reaching the Legislature indicate that the $105 billion emergency funding bill for Iraq will include the national wage hike proposal authored by Congressman George Miller, D-Calif, and chairman of the House Committee on Education and Workforce.
Miller and 222 other Democrats co-authored H.R. 2 or the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007.
H.R. 2 includes a provision mandating the Northern Marianas to implement a 50 cent wage increase on the 60th day after the enactment of the bill and every six months thereafter until the local rate reaches $7.25.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the measure on Jan. 10 but it remains pending after Republicans insisted on the inclusion of tax cuts in the bill.
The Washington Post reported that House leaders have added the wage hike measure to an emergency spending bill for the Iraq war to end the impasse in the Senate.
The Post said the proposal will increase the federal hourly minimum wage by $2.10 within two years and grant $1.3 billion in tax breaks for restaurants and other affected businesses.