Legislators want labor reforms to continue

Leaders of the CNMI Legislature on Friday stressed the need to continue with ongoing labor and immigration reforms in the Northern Marianas despite failure to convince White House emissary Edward B. Cohen against a federal takeover proposal.

They also expect to step up lobbying efforts against the move, beginning with the scheduled visit to the CNMI of U.S. House Natural Resources Committee chair Rep. Don Young next month along with other key congressional officials.

Apparently undaunted by the result of the 902 consultation talks held on Saipan last week, legislative leaders said they are taking Young’s visit as another opportunity to defend the commonwealth anew against allegations from federal government that have prompted the proposed takeover of local immigration and minimum wage-setting powers.

“What we need to do is to prepare ourselves for Chairman Young’s committee,” House Speaker Diego T. Benavente said in an interview at the end of bilateral talks between Washington and the CNMI on Friday.

“If we didn’t convince Mr. Cohen and the delegation on the need to maintain CNMI’s full immigration authority, we’ve got to take the same thing that we did and bring this to Young,” he added.

Cohen was President Clinton’s special representative to the talks provided under Section 902 of the Covenant that tackled labor, immigration and custom issues over a four-day meeting, the first such discussion in six years.

Although the local 902 panel had hoped to persuade the White House delegation on the need to keep CNMI powers set forth in the Covenant, Cohen had told a news conference he would begin work on a legislation that will apply U.S. laws on immigration and minimum wage standards on the island.

But Senate President Paul A. Manglona maintained ongoing local reforms will continue while waiting for the Clinton administration-sponsored bill to come out on the floor of the U.S. Congress.

“We have to address forthcoming legislation when we come to that point, but right now we just have to continue working on the reforms and the efforts to explain further our real situation here,” he said in a separate interview Friday.

Benavente and Manglona are members of the CNMI team headed by Lt. Gov. Jesus R. Sablan. They met with Cohen and four other federal officials during the resumption of the bilateral talks in which the two sides failed to resolve differences on contentious issues.

Both legislative leaders, however, expressed optimism that Young’s visit in February will provide another venue to iron out the problems that have strained bilateral relations in recent years.

“We will have another opportunity to explain the situation out here and the efforts that we have been doing in the past few months,” Manglona pointed out.