Eni On Record Now Favoring Wage Increase For Samoan Tuna Workersff

Source: Samoa News

During the September 23 congressional hearing before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and Insular Affairs in Washington D.C. , congressman Faleomavaega was among those who addressed the committee. He said that he is “on record as voting to increase the wages of our lowest-paid workers because I believe that a Samoan is entitled to the same pay from the same corporation if he/she does the same work as any other man or woman born in any other part of America.”

However, he said, “ASG is on record, at least with the United Nations, in suggesting that the U.S. federal government over-stepped by increasing minimum wage in American Samoa.  This is not the case. American Samoa was exempted from mainstream increases for a period of about 50 years.”

The Congressman also spoke about the history of the minimum wage for American Samoa, reports by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on the impact of the minimum wage and other issues such as the canneries and the competitive world tuna industry.

He also told the congressional panel that the primary factor for the “collapse of American Samoa’s economy is not our wage rates but the wage rates of foreign countries as well as the shift in the way Bumble Bee, Chicken of the Sea and new tuna boats are doing business.”

“Other factors that also impacted our tuna industry included higher fish costs, higher shipping costs, higher fuel costs, better local tax incentives offered by Lyons, Georgia and Thailand, and the global economic recession,” he said.

“It should also be noted that a new cannery, Tri-Marine, one of the world’s largest fish trading companies, chose to invest in our Territory knowing that American Samoa’s wage rates have been increased by $1.50 per hour which undercuts ASG’s argument that minimum wage increases have collapsed our tuna industry or led to ASG’s fiscal failure,” he said.

In conclusion, Faleomavaega pledged “to do everything I can to halt further minimum wage increases in order to provide ASG with the time it needs to put an action plan in place.”