“Federal employees who use Chamorro or Carolinian or any of the other languages spoken in the Northern Mariana Islands would have their skills rewarded under the provisions of this bilingual pay act,” said Sablan.
“Of course, it is not just about rewarding workers for their language skills. This bill also acknowledges the importance of being able to communicate in their own language with members of the public seeking help from the federal government.
“And it encourages federal employees to become more effective communicators in the indigenous languages, so they can do their jobs well.”
The bill sets the differential pay for bilingual or multilingual federal employees to that of employees who are required to be on standby, on night duty, or whose duties are determined to be hazardous. That is 5 percent of basic pay.
The importance of being able to communicate in more than one language is well recognized by local and state governments and private business. Honda, who is the chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, of which Sablan is a member, made the case in an opinion piece in Roll Call, last week.
“Local officials have long recognized the importance of rewarding bi- and multilingual expertise in providing quality public safety and other public services,” Honda wrote. For instance, the city of San Francisco found that one of the most effective ways to recruit bilingual police officers was to offer higher pay to those with language skills.
“The private sector, similarly, has been leading the way on bilingual pay since the 1990s, after two major labor agreements — between Verizon Wireless and the Communications Workers of America and between Kaiser Permanente and the Service Employees International Union — established a bilingual pay boost for employees whose jobs require more than one language. It is high time for the federal government to catch up to these developments in local government and the private sector.”
Almost 20 percent of American households use a language other than English and that statistic may well rise after the completion of the 2010 U.S. census.
“In the Northern Mariana Islands the percentage of bilingual households is certainly even higher than the national average,” says Sablan.
“People should be able to communicate in a language they are comfortable with when dealing with the Federal government.
“The bilingual pay act will encourage more federal officials to learn the indigenous languages — and reward those who already are bilingual.”
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