Transcript
MONICA MILLER: It's going to be a major burden for these families because they will not have a pay check and American Samoa doesn't have much in the way of employment particularly when most of the cannery employees are from other countries particularly Samoa, and the only jobs that are available it seems, are in the government and you need to establish residency here for about 20 years before you can actually become a government employee or you're married to an American Samoan. So talking to the employees only a few have managed to find jobs in the private sector, odd jobs in the retail business as well in trades, other than that, we expect that most of the workers will be returning to Samoa.
DANIELA MAOATE-COX: Is there going to be any assistance from the government or perhaps from Samoa's government?
MM: When the announcement was made that the cannery was closing down indefinitely, Governor Lolo has said that American Samoa will be putting a package together and this will go to the US government so essentially they're looking at something that had happened in 2009 when there was a tsunami and also the Samoa packing plant had closed down putting about 2000 people out of work so basically training them, equipping them with skills they can use elsewhere, still there's that question of what you're going to upskill them with? What's going to happen after? There's been talk of a factory that produces food products but there hasn't been any concrete evidence that that will go through. As far as Samoa, the Prime Minister said that yes, the government will be looking at providing assistance, looking at how these people, displaced employees can be helped. The government has said that the application is going to be compiled, I would have thought that this would have already been submitted but apparently they need time to put all the data together.
DM-C: Has the government given any indication of how long it will take for them to compile that data?
MM: They have not given any time frame, I know from 2009 it took the government I think just a month, a few weeks, because it happened so suddenly and because it was a disaster that's why it happened very quickly, but this is a different situation, the Samoa Tuna Processor's owners have said they're still trying to come up with a way that they can resume some kind of production and they're also looking at interested buyers although they haven't given any names, we're told that Starkist is interested and another cannery, Bumble bee, but that's about where things stand.