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Wage survey will cover employees that don’t have H visas
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Posted on Aug 07 2011
With the exception of those who are already holding H visas, all private and public sector employees in the CNMI regardless of national origin are covered by the Saipan Chamber of Commerce’s ongoing 2011 survey of wages, salaries, and benefits.
The Chamber said it received a definitive response from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Foreign Labor Certification as to the inquiry on which CNMI employees should be included in the survey polling.
Richard Pierce, executive director of the Chamber, said covered are all private and public sector employees, and all job classifications regardless of national origin.
Chamber president Douglas Brennan also made this clarification during the Aug. 3 general membership meeting.
“If you have a U.S. visa [employment visa] right now, you are not to be included in the survey. Everybody else gets included, whether you are from the FSM, Filipino nationals, Korean nationals. If you are an employee and you’re in a job position, we want to know what your title is and what your rate of pay is,” Brennan told Saipan Tribune in an interview.
Pierce said the number of survey forms distributed is now over 300 and growing.
The Chamber, which contracted the Guam Employers Council to perform the actual wage survey, received a $16,150 U.S. Department of the Interior technical assistance grant to support the survey.
The survey results can be used to establish prevailing wage rate determinations for CNMI employers applying for federal employment visas for existing and future foreign workers.
The Chamber expects to produce reports that will protect the local work force, as well as provide employers prevailing wage rates that truly reflect current conditions in the CNMI—not the mainland, Hawaii, or Guam.
