Sethnessatwikipedia

why do you believe the minimum wage on Saipan is $1.05/hr? It is not. Why post inaccurate information?

My mistake. I misremembered. It is $3.05, according to Hawaii Senator Daniel Akaka: http://akaka.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Speeches.Home&month=7&year=1997&release_id=1326

Chamorro Scouting

Can you please help render "Be Prepared", the Scout Motto, into Chamorro? Thanks! Chris 08:20, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Response to "Chamorro Scounting": Nope, won't help you. I'm not living in the C.N.M.I. at the moment, have no Chamorro/Carolinian relatives, and am not a fan of the Boy Scouts. (The Boy Scouts of America's opposition to religious freedom bothers me.) You can no doubt find the info you need by Googling for a church on Saipan / C.N.M.I. Sethnessatwikipedia 08:13, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Saipan's Recent History

Thanks for the great contribution on Saipan. If you have time, you might want to dig into the more recent history. The local newspaper Saipan Tribune has a good archive. (They are owned by Tan Holdings.) Here are several points of recent development: 1. After the lawsuits (maybe even before the ~2000 settlement), working conditions in garment factories had significantly improved, especially for the bigger companies. Abuse continued with the uncontrollable recruiters in China and with smaller CNMI employers (who owe wages and abandon workers). 2. The garment industry peaked before 2005, when some WTO regulations kicked in. Factories began to close and the industry is now half its previous size. 3. The $3.05 minimum wage since 1996 came to an end with the 2007 U.S. minimum wage law which raised CNMI's wage to $3.55 last month and $4.05 next year and eventually reach U.S. level in the 2010s. The garment industry is expected to disappear in a couple years. 4. Congress is now pushing for taking over CNMI immigration, so the whole economy is going to change. (See my little contribution in the CNMI article.) So I hope you will go beyond the 1990s in describing Saipan. HkCaGu 12:50, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Response: If that's all true, show citations and put that in the article on Saipan. Sitting here in a chat with me, and without citations to back it up, what you're saying is just empty air. Specifically for Item 4, I don't believe that Congress WILL do the right thing. Congress, particulary Republicans, seem to be in no rush to end Saipan's ability to hire foreign labor at slave wages under indentured-servitude contracts, then export the products to America with the "Made in USA" tag on it and no import tariff applied to it. In fact, they pretend that Saipan's horrific labor practices are a capitalist model, a paradise of laissez faire economy. Aside from the Hawaiian faction, nobody seems willing to call Saipan the festering, evil sweatshop that it is.

Unfortunately, you obviously have no clues what's going on recently, and unfortunately, I don't have time to do a major rewrite. HkCaGu (talk) 10:11, 14 February 2008 (UTC)