StarKist Tuna, the New Minimum Wage and Speaker Nancy Pelosi

I'm not one to post much, but I think this deserves some discussion on Wetpixel – Heck, we’re talking tuna here.

Recently, our new House & Senate passed the new Federal Minimum Wage. The new hourly rate of any American worker is $7.25.

Did you know that American Samoa is not included in the new bill? Do you know why? I'll tell you: StarKist Tuna. Here's an article in the Washington Post:

Washington Post

Apparently, StarKist tuna has a lot of employees in American Samoa (over 75% of the entire islands work force). StarKist corporate office is in San Francisco - exactly where Mrs. Pelosi represents. Sound fishy???

Regardless of you political opinion on the Speaker or the Minimum Wage; what is a diver to do? Should one protest the fact that StarKist Tuna gets to pay less to the average tuna worker which leads to decimating our oceans a lot cheaper than other companies - OR - should we argue the point of some Americans getting jerked on the new wage – OR – should we be upset that Mrs. Speaker is caving in to Corporate interests just as she claims her party is against?

This is an intersting case. Typically, one sees governments subsidizing fisheries that are no longer economically viable. In this case, they are doing the opposite...providing less funding. This could speak to the fact that our tuna stocks are dwindling so quickly that in order to keep fishing them, wages must be kept down, thereby hiding this situation from the public (prices can stay lower). I wonder if this was the case with other fish stocks before they crashed.

Intersting forumla:

Phase 1: Healthy fish stocks

=unregulated industry with no limits, free for all, market wages and prices

Phase 2: Dwindling stocks

=unenforced regulations, lax quotas, diminshing wages, market prices

Phase 3: Crashed fish stocks

=enforced regulations, quotas but still too high, small group of licensed fisherman, subsidized wages, fixed prices

Phase 4: Nothing left to catch

=move on to next fish stock

Does this sound accurate?