HOUSE Vice Speaker Manuel A. Tenorio is supporting the administration and Washington Rep. Pete A. Tenorio’s proposal to adopt a federally designed tiered minimum wage patterned after the American Samoa model.
But 11 other members of the House of Representatives would rather have a locally designed measure on the minimum wage hike without the federal government’s intervention.
On Tuesday’s special session, the vice speaker introduced House Resolution 13-51 supporting the application of the special industry committee system of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act to determine a fair and appropriate minimum wage in the commonwealth.
But on the same day, 11 lawmakers headed by Rep. Stanley T. Torres, R-Saipan and chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, pre-filed H.B. 13-133 which seeks to implement an across the board increase in the minimum wage.
The vice speaker explained that a federally designed minimum wage would be affective for the CNMI if a tiered wage would be determined by a special industry committee that was set out under the FLSA.
“It has been successful in the other insular areas and is used to this day in American Samoa. The goal of the committee is to reach as rapidly as is economically feasible without substantially curtailing employment the objective of (reaching the level) of the U.S. minimum wage,” said Tenorio, R-Saipan.
Under the American Samoa tiered wage system, minimum wage rates on an industry by industry basis are being determined by a special industry wage committee whose members are appointed by the U.S. secretary of labor.
The American Samoa tiered wage law has become a part of the FLSA. Based on federal data, American Samoa had 18 different minimum hourly wage rates under the FLSA in 1999.
But Torres, the bill’s principal author, wants a minimum wage measure that is “effectively controlled by the commonwealth” and that “would have no caste-like levels.”
Under H.B. 13-33, minimum wage would be increased to $4 per hour effective June 1. It would be increased by 30 cents on June 1 of every year thereafter until such time that the minimum wage reaches the U.S. hourly minimum wage of $5.10.
“This, I think is the most rational and fair way of implementing a minimum wage. There is no assurance that wages would be hiked if we adopt the American Samoa model. It may even lead to a roll back. There is also this danger of us losing control over legislating a minimum wage if that model would be adopted as the federal government would be given a hand on determining wages. It is an insult to our local people. Why do we have to go backwards?” Torres said.
