Delegate Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (Ind-MP) praised the Bank of Hawai\u2019i for its decision to raise its minimum wage to $15 per hour beginning on Monday, Jan. 1, 2018. The bank said the money it saved from the new federal tax law allows the increase. The $15 per hour amount is considered to be a \u201cliving wage\u201d in Hawai\u2019i and will be paid to employees in the Northern Marianas and other locations where the bank has branches.<\/p>\n
\u201cBank of Hawai\u2019i is showing the way for all the other corporations and businesses in the Marianas that are benefiting from the new tax,\u201d Sablan said. \u201cThe bank deserves congratulations for its leadership.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Trump promised that businesses would \u2018shower\u2019 money on employees as a result of the new tax law reducing the rate on corporations from 35 percent to 21 percent. In the case of Bank of Hawai\u2019i that does seem to be happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bank also announced a $1,000 cash bonus for 2,074 of its employees, 95 percent of the bank\u2019s total workforce.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not a big fan of the tax law,\u201d Sablan admitted. \u201cIt will reduce federal revenues, and that will force Congress to cut federal grant programs. And because the Commonwealth tax code mirrors the federal code, Commonwealth revenues will also go down.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is a problem the Marianas Legislature will have to figure out either by raising taxes or cutting services.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raising the wage is good policy<\/strong> \u201cI am an original cosponsor of the Raise the Wage Act that would raise the national minimum wage to $15 per hour over a seven-year period,\u201d the congressman explained. \u201cAlthough the bill is not going anywhere in this Republican Congress, if Democrats are successful at retaking the House in the next Congress, then a minimum wage increase will be a priority.\u201d<\/p>\n As a senior member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, Sablan said he would be in a position to make any special adjustments, stretching out the timing for the $15 increase in the Marianas, if that would be more suited to the scale of local businesses.<\/p>\n Sablan said the Marianas Legislature should also look at raising the minimum wage.<\/p>\n \u201cI know that Bank of Hawai\u2019i cannot be compared to a small local business,\u201d the Congressman said. \u201cBut, at least, getting all of the larger businesses in the Marianas to start raising wages to the living wage level could be good policy.<\/p>\n \u201cIn fact, Governor Torres testified at the hearing on my CW bill, H.R. 339, this year that the Legislature was going to increase the CNMI minimum wage. The governor said that a higher wage would bring more local residents into the workforce and help reduce the need for foreign workers.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd the GAO report on minimum wage and labor needs in the Marianas that I commissioned along with Senators Lisa Murkowski and Maria Cantwell showed that as the minimum wage has gone up more local, U.S. workers have entered the labor force,\u201d added Sablan.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, I would agree with the governor that having the Legislature raise the CNMI minimum wage is part of the long-term solution to the Marianas\u2019 labor problem.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I would hope that he\u2014and the Legislature\u2014follow through on his promise.<\/p>\n \u201cBank of Hawai\u2019i is certainly showing that it is possible to start paying workers more.\u201d (PR)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Delegate Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (Ind-MP) praised the Bank of Hawai\u2019i for its decision to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[13230,26,11016,19610],"class_list":["post-267306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-boh","tag-cnmi","tag-gao","tag-marianas-legislature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSablan said he does think it is good policy to put more money into the pockets of working people, whose spending drives the economy. And he is working on that goal in Congress. <\/p>\n