A doggone move

The group purporting to serve the interest of long time nonresident contract workers will do just the opposite. By organizing a rally to support the U.S. Democrat Party in its mission to gut the economy of the CNMI by imposing harmful labor and immigration regulations, Dekada will cause many of their members to be forced to return to their countries of origin, jobless and destitute.

Forced wage hikes, once implemented, will not occur in a vacuum. In order to pay some workers twice as much per hour, about half the total workforce will lose their jobs altogether to pay for it. So rallying behind the group that will cause this massive layoff and firing of contract workers is especially shortsighted.

Workers, think about it this way: If you have $100 to spend on feeding your family and that buys three sacks of rice and a couple of cases of chicken, what happens if you are forced to pay $200 for the same food? If your dollars don’t grow you just have to eat as much food because that is all you can afford to buy. The same thing holds true for the company you work for. If they are now paying 20 workers $3.50 per hour and are forced by the invasive U.S. government to start paying $7 per hour they will just fire 10 of the workers in order to pay for the others. In an economy that is diminishing, those 10 out-of-work people will not find a replacement job and will be sent back home where they will get to work for $2 a DAY, if they can find work at all. Dekada does you no favor by siding with the people who will cause you to lose your job here in the CNMI.

It may be a bit embarrassing to explain to your family back home how you marched on the courthouse here on Saipan in favor of the people who caused you to lose your job and the money you USED to remit home to support your family. Now you will be in the same boat as they are…jobless.

Dekada should spend its $300,000 in collected dues to directly negotiate with appropriate U.S. Immigration officials to try to get your alien worker (green card) rights amended rather than wasting time and money on a showy display of reverence toward a group out to make you lose your jobs.

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Saipan Mayor Juan B. Tudela is doing his best to try to comply with stray dog regulations and legislation. It is not an easy job. However, with $75,000 currently in hand to spend on luxury hotel accommodations for stray dogs, we should compare and realize that most human residents on Saipan live in a dwelling that costs less, often far less than that.

I think it is highly unlikely that our stray dog problem will be solved by this Doggy Hilton Resort. It would be far better to spend the 75 Grand on a subsidized spay and neuter program so as to nip (pardon the pun) the problem in the bud. Fewer offspring means fewer strays. A dog hotel just means happier, fatter strays. Speaking of fatter, would a doggie supermarket make more sense than a doggie hotel? Doggie feed lot?

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The recent announcement of the pending closure of the Concorde garment factory may be just the catalyst we need to spur us on to move forward quickly on other revenue generating projects so maybe it is not as negative as it seems right now. If we listen to the alarm bell of this wake-up call instead of hitting the “snooze” button again, we can more than make up for the coming demise of the garment industry. I don’t think we have the luxury of oversleeping even once more. The boss has already marked our time cards “habitually late.” Let’s prove him wrong.

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Quote of the week: HOTELS: A place where traveling humans are parked at night. Other humans bring them food, including the famous bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich. There are beds and towels and special things that rain on people to get them clean.
—Terry Pratchett (1948 – )

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