PAGO PAGO (RNZ Pacific/Pacnews) — American Samoa’s Republican Congresswoman Uifa’atali Aumua Amata wants the territory to remain exempted from U.S. federal minimum wage law.
Uifa’atali Aumua Amata
Major coronavirus and economic relief legislation, under consideration by the U.S. Congress, includes a provision to hike the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 per hour.
In a letter to the House committee reviewing the legislation, Uifa’atali said a move to a $15 per hour minimum is too high and sudden for American Samoa.
She said such a move would be catastrophic for the territory and could bankrupt the local government which is the largest employer, with nearly 5,000 workers.
Uifa’atali said it would also cause the territory’s largest private employer, StarKist Samoa, with nearly 3,000 direct and affiliated jobs, to close.
She explained that these two entities contain over half the local total workforce.
She asked the committee to keep American Samoa’s current exemption in place which aims to keep the territory on a steady and more manageable path toward a wage increase. The initial exemption was supported by the House majority last Congress when it passed similar legislation.
“We are still a developing economy 7,000 miles from D.C. and dependent on workers from the neighboring islands of independent Samoa for our cannery and small businesses,” she wrote.
Under current federal law, American Samoa has 18 different minimum wage levels depending on the industry.
The last minimum wage hike was on Sept. 30, 2018 putting the cannery’s minimum wage at $5.56 per hour while the government’s minimum wage was $5.21 per hour.
The current federal schedule establishes increases of 40 cents every three years for all 18 industry categories with the next increase scheduled for September 2021.
