April 11, 2000 -- Congressman Robert A. Underwood took the floor again today in his ongoing drive against the Navy´s outsourcing efforts in Guam and Raytheon´s wage offers to affected former federal civil service employees, this time demanding to know how the Navy arrived at wage scales lower than Guam´s.

According to Guam´s prevailing wage scales, an accounting clerk makes $8.48 an hour, but under the Navy´s service contract, the wage being offered for the same position is $5.80 an hour. And while Guam´s data entry clerks make an average of $13.25 an hour, Raytheon is offering $11.86 an hour. "This is an outrage," the Congressman said. "When you add to that a 32-hour work week, it really is a catastrophe for the people involved."

In his floor speech, Underwood said Navy has allowed Raytheon to offer depressed wages according to an inadequate wage survey. That survey, which included the wage scales of Guam and several other communities, was not in line with either prevailing wages established by the Guam Department of Labor or with mainland wage standards. "As a result of that, the wages being offered are less than the prevailing wages established by the Guam Department of Labor for the hiring of H-2 (alien) workers," Underwood said. "The net result is that alien workers in Guam have better wage protection than the Navy is affording its former civil service employees. It´s an outrage. I´m again calling for an investigation of this, and I´m calling on the Department of Defense Inspector General to investigate how the Navy arrived at these wages. And we´re not going to stop until we get to the bottom of it."

Undersecretary of Defense Rudy De Leon is currently soliciting a response from the Navy to the letter sent by Congressman Underwood and 28 other members of Congress. "Before responding to my letter, he has made a commitment to give me the opportunity to explain our side of the story. And I´m sure that any reasonable examination of the record will reveal that these depressed wages are a form of wage busting on the part of the Navy and is simply unconscionable," Underwood said.

"The Raytheon contract has been in effect now for two days, but we will continue to call for halting it," he added. "Hopefully, we´ll be able to reach a resolution of the wage issue, as we continue to investigate other dimensions of the contracting process, which continues to be unsatisfactory and hurtful to our employees."

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