US Senate bill could ban foreign workers
Updated
Guest workers may be banned from the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas by 2014, if a landmark bill is passed by the United States Senate. Bill S.2739 is widely expected to be passed this year, and one of its many provisions allows for the Marianas to be federalised -- bringing immigration and work practices under US mainland control. The Marianas government has vehemently opposed the bill, saying it will destroy its struggling economy. But many of the islands' residents are speaking out in support of federalisation; they accuse the government of using a scare campaign to maintain the status quo.
Presenter: Megan Flamer
Speakers: David North, formerly with the United States' department of the interior and retired immigration policy researcher; Charles Reyes, press secretary to Marianas governor Benigno Fitial; Stephen Woodruff, attorney with the Dekada Movement
FLAMER: Under Homeland Security, the bill would give the US control of foreign workers permits in the Marianas. It's the latest move to bring the Marianas into line with mainland practices, which has already seen the implementation of minimum wages in both the CNMI and American Samoa. As part of this bill, permits for foreign workers would be phased out by December 2014. David North has worked with the United States' department of the interior and was an immigration policy researcher in the United States for three decades. He says the federalising the Marianas is necessary and long overdue.
NORTH: Marianas took advantage of a loophole in their arrangements with the United States to bring in enormous numbers of "guest workers". They really weren't guest workers, they really badly treated by the Marianas Government and more specifically the Marianas Government allowed the employers who were typically mainland Chinese to exploit these people.
FLAMER: Mr North says the fragility of the Marianas economy can't be blamed on the introduction of the minimum wage bill.
NORTH: The fiscal problem is that the Marianas has essentially for a number of years been trying to live beyond its means and has been using - and there is actually loopholes in immigration and customs agreements with the United States to have a unattractive system of treating more groups in factories out there, in the garment factories.
FLAMER: But the government of the Marianas believes the bill would be economically catastrophic for the Commonwealth. Charles Reyes is press secretary to Marianas governor Benigno Fitial. He says the Marianas needs adequate access to foreign workers if its economy is to remain viable.
REYES: There are a lot of factors to consider and we're very small island entity and we need for the government to understand our economic situation and make sure that we have continued access to foreign workers in order to staff our economy. And one of the factors of production is labour, land and capital - and labour is absolutely crucial and without it we wouldn't be able to have the employees to staff the hotels, to serve our tourists, for example. And so if you take away the foreign workers, you're also taking away opportunities for the local workers, and you're taking away income from local landlords and from local businesses, foreign and local, it's just a negative situation all around if you look at it that way.
FLAMER: Stephen Woodruff is an attorney with the Dekada Movement, which seeks to improve the status of long term foreign residents of the CNMI. He says the whole situation is being misrepresented by local media and the Governor's office.
WOODRUFF: The federal legislation will help to normalise the labour market, but most important, in these two categories, minimum wage an extension of federal immigration law to the CNMI, will bring stability to an area where there has been instability, will bring greater fairness to an area where there has been great unfairness. It will take out of the hands of the CNMI legislature, policy matters that have been really grossly mismanaged across the past 20 years, and it is that stability and that ability for businesses to plan and to act with confidence that is really a critical component of our economic revaluation here in the Northern Marianas.
FLAMER: Mr Woodruff believes it's the fear of loss of profits and political power that's behind the opposition to the bill. But ultimately, he says things need to change in the Marianas if the Commonwealth to survive and prosper.
WOODRUFF: This is not what the economy depends on. So yes, it will upset to some extent prevailing economic and political relief, but that's not what we need. What we need is a healthy economy, not preservation of the status quo.
