American Samoa cannery confirms moves to sack 200 employees blames min wage hike

http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=32773


American Samoa cannery confirms moves to sack 200 employees

Posted at 22:09 on 05 June, 2007 UTC

One of the canneries in American Samoa, Samoa Packing, is to slash 200 jobs within two months, from its workforce as a result of a hike in the minimum wage.

The cannery’s Jim Davet says the federally-imposed increase won’t allow the company to remain competitive because they’re having to pay much higher rates to can tuna than others internationally.

The company halted planned expansion at the plant and did not go ahead with some large capital purchases as a result.

Mr Davet says they’re now waiting to see what the U.S. government is going to do to offset the minimum wage bill.

Samoa Packing is expecting to work with Congressman Faleomavaega Eni and the U.S. government to establish programmes to offset the bill.

Any executive wage or benefit package cuts being proposed? No? Thought not.

They have to have employees to work at the plant, otherwise they will have to shut down. Cut the CEO's salary to what they give employees that should take up the slack.