Sagana, who announced the Dekada Movement’s participation in the May 1 rally with other guest worker groups, said the CNMI needs to establish a free labor market, and provide equality of treatment of all workers that will also benefit the business community.
“By setting worker interest against each other, the system increases the political power of business interests and diminishes that of working people, local and foreign alike,” he said.
He added that this “flawed system” is a disservice to the business community and the economy as it increases costs and imposes a “hidebound bureaucratic system that impedes the free flow of labor, throwing up obstacles between employer and worker, impairing freedom of contract, and undermining efficiency and adaptability to market conditions.”
Dekada’s participation in the rally, he explained, is intended to help lay a foundation for rebuilding the CNMI economy.
Sagana at the same time said the U.S. Congress need to amend the federalization law, or U.S. P.L. 11-229.
Workers should have a place at the table and an active participation in the process of development and drafting the transition regulations, instead of being given “an opportunity to comment after it is all done,” he said.
“Morally, the U.S. government ought to make this possible,” he said. “And we need to tell them exactly how.”
Sagana said the 180-day delay in the implementation of the law has good and bad points.
He said Dekada did not oppose the extension because the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of the Interior, and the CNMI political leadership have failed to prepare properly for the transition to U.S. immigration.
He said workers now need to take a more active role.
“We cannot simply wait to see what gets put in the regulations. We may wait forever and then not like whatever happens to us.”
Sagana also questioned provisions of the law that calls for consultation with the CNMI governor.
“Why only the governor, and why only consultation?” he asked.
Foreign workers have no say in who is elected governor of the CNMI and federal law prohibits aliens from advancing their views by making donations to political campaigns, he said.
He cited the exclusion of Russian and Chinese tourist from the visa waiver program as an example of why a delay of implementation was a “necessary evil” and “of the federal government’s insensitivity not only to the needs of the CNMI but to the expressed intent of the U.S. Congress in enacting P.L. 110-229 that it not be economically damaging to the commonwealth.”
But every delay in making the transition to federalization law is another delay in the recovery of the island’s economy, Sagana said.
“Our economy cannot move forward while this is hanging in the air,” Sagana said, adding that “the complete absence of a defined framework for implementation of the transition was another reason delay was unavoidable.”
This delay, he added, “also means a perpetuation of injustices and the continuation of a dysfunctional system that is in no one’s interest.”
Sagana is calling on all workers in the commonwealth to unite and join the May 1 rally.
The business community and the general public should also join this effort because they have common interests and the economic future of the CNMI depends on capitalizing on those common interests, he said.
