Senate defers action on ‘doomed’ garment bill

The Senate has referred back to the committee a House proposal that aims to partially lift the moratorium on the hiring of certain garment factory workers. Unconfirmed reports have it, though, that the bill may just be shelved after the Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association expressed reservations about the measure.

SGMA executive director Richard Pierce had earlier reported that the CNMI’s garment industry has begun to shrink and is now 3,000-worker slots below the allowable maximum worker count of 15,727.

Pierce said increasing the allowable number of garment workers in the Commonwealth might just jeopardize the clamor to amend the U.S. Tariff Code for a reduction of value-added requirement on garment imports from insular areas, including the CNMI.

During its session on Tinian Wednesday, the Senate passed House Bill 14-282 on first reading, which means the bill will go back to the committee for review and possible amendments.

The bill, authored by Rep. Oscar Babauta, allows the local garment industry to hire more workers, specifically cutters, sewers, trimmers, and pressers “to increase productivity and be able to compete globally” in view of the worldwide quota elimination last Jan. 1, 2005.

Under the moratorium law, the apparel industry is only allowed to hire 15,727 nonresident workers.

The bill allows the industry to increase its workforce to “not more than 50 percent above the 15,727 alien workers.”

It also provides that each licensed garment manufacturer can hire additional workers no more than 50 percent of its quota.

Babauta said the policy reform is most needed in view of the lifting of quotas, which, he said, puts great pressure on the local industry’s competitiveness.

The bill noted that the CNMI garment industry is beginning to shrink and the primary reason for this is due to the CNMI’s “inflexible, restrictive, and extremely bureaucratic nonresident workers policy.”

Sources said, though, that the Executive Branch has already prepared a veto message on the bill.

“It’s not going to pass,” said a legislative staff.

SGMA’s Pierce himself said this move to increase the size of the industry’s workers “appears to contradict the argument that unless we change headnote 3(a) the industry will be harmed.”

“People in Washington, D.C. already believe that foreign countries are crying wolf as they try to obtain trade benefits from the United States. We cannot afford the same to be said of the CNMI,” he said.

Instead, Pierce proposed to allow factories that need additional workers beyond their quota counts the use of the available 3,000 slots.

There are at least two out of 26 SGMA-member factories that would like to increase worker counts over their existing ceilings, said Pierce, adding, however, that the need amounts to a maximum of 500 workers only.

The Senate also passed House Bill 14-15, which aims to create the Office of the Homeland Security under the Governor’s Office, as well as Senate Bill 14-81, which aims to declare a Martin Luther King Day every year. To do that, the bill aims to merge the Commonwealth and Covenant Days on March 24.

At present, the CNMI has 14 legal holidays.