Remember the arguments for raising the minimum wage? They ran along the lines of "It's unfair for some people to be paid so little and others so much," or "These multi-billion dollar corporations aren't even paying a living wage to their employees," and so on.
Fortunately for that tiny fraction of the American workforce, Congress has passed an increase in the minimum wage. So, workers will enjoy an almost $2 per hour increase in pay real soon, right?
Well, unless you work for the major tuna producer in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's district.
"I am shocked," said Rep. Eric Cantor, Virginia Republican and his party's chief deputy whip, noting that Mrs. Pelosi campaigned heavily on promises of honest government. "Now we find out that she is exempting hometown companies from minimum wage. This is exactly the hypocrisy and double talk that we have come to expect from the Democrats."
...The bill also extends for the first time the federal minimum wage to the U.S. territory of the Northern Mariana Islands. However, it exempts American Samoa, another Pacific island territory that would become the only U.S. territory not subject to federal minimum-wage laws.
One of the biggest opponents of the federal minimum wage in Samoa is StarKist Tuna, which owns one of the two packing plants that together employ more than 5,000 Samoans, or nearly 75 percent of the island's work force. StarKist's parent company, Del Monte Corp., has headquarters in San Francisco, which is represented by Mrs. Pelosi. The other plant belongs to California-based Chicken of the Sea.
Pelosi says she was never lobbied to exclude American Samoa from the bill, but I have to admit it smells a little fishy.
Cross-posted at Common Sense Political Thought.
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