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Who’s making millions?

While 2500 StarKist workers reap a watered-down wage, its lone executive nets some hefty earnings

By David North

WHO do you suppose was paid more during 1990, the Mainland-based corporate boss of the StarKist tuna racking plant in American Samoa, or he 2500 people who work there?

Bear in mind that most of the people vho gut and clean the tuna have nigra ted to Pago Pago to do the work, ind arc covered by a watered-down version of the Mainland minimum wage, n short, they are not the worst-paid workers in the Islands.

Nevertheless, PIM estimates that the 500 production workers (mostly West m Samoans) were paid no more than 16,000 while the single executive re eived more than $75,000,000 that year.

Thai is not a typographical error, •ritish-born 7 ony O’Reilly, chairman of IJ. Heinz, which owns the StarKist lant and other food-producing oper tions around the globe, had a total □mpensation during Heinz’ 1990 fiscal ear of $75,084,622. More than 71,000,000 of that was because Heinz ad granted him a large number ofstock larket warrants, and when the share rice rose he secured a $71,000,000 rofit. The rest of his compensation was continuing flow of salary, pension sel ves, and other goodies worth 3,625,698. (This can be seen by reading te fine type of the company’s reports.) O’Reilly’s $75,000,000 haul will ap irently not be the highpoint of his

lancial career, according to Peg

Hara, a senior staff member at a Washington think tank, Investor Re lonsibility Research Center. She says at if things go reasonably well for einz, O’Reilly can use another batch of arrants to collect something like 150,000,000 in 1995. That’s four times

the annual budget of American Samoa, and more than the combined 1989 expenditures of Kiribati, Tuvalu, Tonga, Vanuatu, and Western Samoa.

It is against this background of corporate affluence that StarKist’s Washington lobbyists have been handed a tough assignment: to convince the Congress of the United States that Heinz cannot afford to raise the minimum wage for the 2500 workers in the Pago Pago tuna cannery.

StarKist’s team is not alone, however.

The other, slightly smaller cannery, Van Camp-Samoa Packing, is also opposed to increasing minimum wages from the current 52.92/hour; Van Camp’s hand is weakened, however, because its owner ship is in Indonesia (while Heinz’ is in the US).

A much more significant and vocal ally is Governor Peter Tali Coleman, who is an outspoken opponent of raising minimum wages in Samoa.

Minimum wage levels are set differently in American Samoa than they are in all other US jurisdictions. While the Mainland minimum wage of $4.25 an hour applies everywhere else, includ ing Guam, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, a special board sets minimum wages by industry in Ameri can Samoa. The minimum wage for the tuna canneries is now set at $2.92 an hour (see PIM, July 1991) although most workers get a few cents an hour more.

Recently the powerful chairman of the House of Representatives subcommittee controlling such legislation introduced a bill that would phase out the special treatment of American Samoa’s wages, and bring them up to the Mainland levels over three years. This move by Congressman Austin Murphy (D Pa.) would give most of the cannery workers roughly a dollar-an-hour increase spread over the next three years. (We got the

516,000,000 payroll by multiplying 2500 workers by 2000 hours a year probably a little generous by an estimated average wage of 53.20 an hour).

The last time an American Samoa minimum wage bill came before the Congress, StarKist and Van Camp had two allies that they have since lost,

Congressman Murphy and American

Samoan Congressman Eni F H Faleomavaega, who has since reluctantly accepted the existing minimum wage, out of the desire to keep the canneries in the area.

He now thinks, in general terms, that the minimum should be raised as well, though he has not yet committed himself to a specific formula such as Murphy’s.

In a letter to Murphy, for example, he pointed out: “American Samoa is the only jurisdiction in the US in which the federal minimum wage law does not apply. A clear example of the dispartiy under our current structure in the territory is apprentice carpenters who are paid less than $2.00 an hour while some attorneys make as much as 5125 an hour.” (Both Faleomaveaga and Murphy are lawyers.) Perhaps a greater self-confidence com ing from his thunderous re-election victory over Coleman’s ally, and Terri torial Treasurer, Ace Tago, in Novem ber, 1990, had something to do with the new position; in any case, he and Coleman have battled vigorously over the minimum wage bill, which may go to hearings later this year, Coleman was doubly incensed because of the timing of the announcement of the proposed labor legislation. He had worked out a deal with StarKist to exchange $2O million of additional in vestment in facilities improvements in return for yet another round of lax breaks, this time for 10 years. The Governor felt that the entire deal was being threatened by a change in the ground rules regarding wages. (As StarKist pointed out, Pago Pago’s tuna competes in American markets with tuna packed by low-wage workers in Thailand and Indonesia. The firm did not, how ever, discuss the size of the tariff barriers which help protect this product.) □