Employment and Income in the Villages

The overwhelming majority of the permanent and temporary jobs that are available to residents of Gambell, Unalakleet, and Wainwright are in the public sector. In addition, the majority of employment in private sector jobs is dependent primarily on grants and contracts from public agencies or on purchases and travel engaged in by people on public sector payrolls, grants, contracts, and related sources of funds. These villages represent classic public sector dependencies: their resource bases have been expropriated; ownership or control, or both, of productive local resources are vested in nonlocal governments and corporations; the resources relied on for subsistence are controlled by nonlocal governments; access to the loci of power is limited; income from public sources and dole provides services, goods, structures for shelter, and cash to underwrite the subsistence economies; and there are virtually no sustainable private

sector businesses, owned and controlled locally, to provide a floor for the local economy.

Table 8 tallies the full-time employment for the three villages in 1982. It is difficult to pinpoint the precise number of full-time equivalents (FTEs), because jobs that appear to be permanent come and go with contracts and grants in all three villages (CIPs for Wainwright). Yet, if we treat the jobs listed here as permanent and full-time, our estimate will not be too highly inflated for the 1981-1983 period.

Table 9 lists the numbers of persons employed in the very small, private, family-held businesses in the three villages. Only one of these businesses, the retail store in Gambell, provides the sole source of income for the owner. Only two of the businesses—the lodge and the white-owned boat-building outfit in Unalakleet—provide major sources of income for the owners or their employees. These entrepreneurial enterprises are fitted into the families' quests to provide a little extra for purchases of all kinds.

Gambell

Gambell is cash poor, has few jobs, and has few prospects for economic growth in either public or private sectors. Controlling for population sizes, in 1982, Wainwright had almost three times and Unalakleet had over one-and-one-half times more FTE jobs than Gambell. The dependency of Gambell residents on the public sector for almost every single full-time job in the community is a striking fact. So is the tiny number of jobs that are available. There is little doubt but that the choice of land over participation in the distribution of ANCSA settlement funds has deprived Gambell of many public sector jobs.

Gambell's location makes it unsuitable as a transportation or administration hub. There is some likelihood that Gambell may be located dose to large quantifies of outer continental shelf oil and very close to the main transportation lanes for oil movement by ship. But the several village governments—IRA, city council, and village corporation—will not participate in the proceeds from any oil-related activities that occur near the island, except as transfers are made available by the federal govern-

ment. It is more likely that they will reap the disbenefits from noise, traffic, and spills.

Nonnatives occupy the high-salary positions in education (3 percent of the population holds 14 percent of the jobs), leaving the village in May and returning in September each year. In spite of their high salaries, the turnover rate of teachers is high. More than half of the households have no wage earners, part-time or full-time. The 58 full-time jobs occupied by natives are supplemented by occasional work. There were 28 jobs of brief duration in 1982, 8 of them for the construction of a multipurpose building that took six weeks to complete. Another 20 jobs were made available in the building of an evacuation road to protect against flooding. Those lasted for three weeks.

Although the Territorial Guard/National Guard has had a history of villager participation since the early 1940s (see Hughes 1984: 265), the thirty-six men and one woman who are currently active in the Gambell National Guard are not motivated solely by patriotism or history. The government-issued equipment, from "moon boots" to parkas, and the pay for monthly meetings and annual encampments are welcomed.

The latter provides about $1,000, on average, to every Guard member each year.

As we know, the principal source of income for almost all Gambell families is sales of carved and ancient ivory. Skin sewing contributes small amounts as well. The aggregate earnings from sewing, carving, and ancient ivory sales was $500 per capita in 1982.

Welfare and transfers-in-kind are important in Gambell, although they do not provide the sole means of support for any recipient or recipient family. But these resources are used within segments of clans to purchase food, equipment, and fuel, and benefits extend to clanspersons beyond the recipients. The resources, then, are pooled with those of more fortunate relatives, who provide assistance and kindness as a matter of course. Elders, as in Unalakleet, especially if they have few clanspersons, receive assistance of various kinds from many village residents, regardless of clan membership.

In 1981, nearly one-half of the households received food stamps, one-third received energy assistance, 12 percent received Aid for Dependent Children, 15 percent received Old Age Assistance, and 3 percent received Aid to the Permanently Disabled. The total value of the transfers was $1,078 per capita.

Robbins (John Muir Institute 1984: 121-122; Little and Robbins 1984) calculates the Gambell average household income from all sources at $13,200 and per capita income at $3,220. That is one-third less than the Unalakleet per capita and two-thirds less than that of Wainwright for 1982.

The importance of welfare transfers is undeniable. They account for one-third of the per capita income, an amount more than double that which is earned from the few but vital forms of production in the village—ivory carving, including the carving of ancient ivory, and skin sewing. And the dominant role of subsistence from naturally occurring resources is also obvious. The meager family incomes are plowed into subsistence pursuits, including the pursuit of walrus tusks.

Unalakleet

In Unalakleet, there were 184 full-time jobs for a total population of 790 in 1982. Natives, comprising 88 percent of the

population, held 60 percent of the jobs (110), and nonnatives, comprising 12 percent, held 40 percent of the jobs (74). Wages in Unalakleet, except for persons employed in professional capacities as educators, administrators, and pilots, range between $5.00 and $15.00 per hour. A few white households are disproportionately represented in full-time, public sector employment, principally as educators and administrators. Among 31 couples or families, 55 white persons are employed full-time, meaning that 30 percent of all full-time employment in the village is held by these few households.

It is doubtful whether nonnatives would reside in Unalakleet if there were no employment for them. The jobs that they occupy are predominantly in the public sector, and should they continue to work in the village until their retirement, according to past practices, they would then relocate. The village is an out-post—the locale of their employment but not their home. Even the pastors and teachers at the Swedish Covenant Church and School relocate on retirement.

The majority of the nonnatives are employed in school district, education, health care, and city administration and as pilots and mechanics for Ryan Air. The services they provide, then, require special educations and particular skills, and they are paid either directly or indirectly from the public coffers. This occupational structure is consonant with underdeveloped economies that are dependent on the public sector. Educators and administrators earn from $40,000 to $100,000 annually (the latter for a school district superintendent). Clerks and custodians working full-time earn $9,600 to $13,000 annually. Even these figures are misleading until we analyze costs and expenditures in the arctic and subarctic.

Construction jobs in Unalakleet are not plentiful. In some years, there are four or five small projects going on during the summer months, such as the construction of apartments for school district personnel or a school district building. But some summers go by with only small repair jobs in town. In the 1981-1983 period, approximately thirty-five short-term construction jobs were available annually. A little more than half of those jobs were held by itinerant nonnatives.

Large construction projects in Unalakleet are few, although two new state schools and a school district building were com-

pleted between 1979 and 1982. Jobs on the larger projects go predominantly to nonnatives, because Unalakleet does not have a native hiring preference clause and because most public developments are contracted by firms that are not located in Unalakleet. A strong building trades union in Alaska assures that workers will be hired off the bench in Fairbanks or Anchorage for jobs in Unalakleet. Smaller jobs, such as apartments constructed by the village corporation, go predominantly to natives. Perhaps twenty natives can get ten weeks of work each year from local, small-scale construction projects.

The Norton Sound Fishermen's Cooperative fish-processing plant might employ as few as 25 or as many as 35 persons in their various crews throughout the season. (In 1982, 14 nonnative workers were brought in by a nonnative from Minnesota who had contracted to operate the plant. Local natives and a few local nonnatives composed the rest of the work crews.) Crews work through each fishing session. The salmon season lasts from about mid-June to early September and is divided into 25 sessions, ranging from 12 to 48 hours. A rest period follows each fishing session. Plant crew members average about 50 shifts of 8 hours each during the season. Pay averages about $4.00 per hour. A person working every session would gross about $1,600.

A National Guard unit provides modest incomes to the fifteen members who attend the monthly meetings and encampments. Men can pick up work on fire-fighting crews from time to time. And efforts are made each summer through city, IRA, regional corporations, and the state to provide some employment for local youths. Service on various advisory committees—fish and game, coastal zone management, school board, Bering Straits Regional Corporation—also pay travel, per diem expenses, and, on occasion, modest fees. These small bits of cash are not trivial to native families. They can pay for fuel to drive motorboats and snowmachines, for ammunition, for repairs to equipment, or for specially desired foods from the local store.

The primary source of income for about 115 natives, entry-permit holders and assistants, in Unalakleet is commercial fishing. Assistants receive one-third of the proceeds from the catch. They are usually brothers or sons of the permit holders,

although cousins or even good friends sometime form these two-man crews. The natives (and their assistants) who fish in the Unalakleet subdistrict of Norton Sound are joined by 18 nonnative permit holders, some of whom reside in Unalakleet and work at the various schools or in other capacities that allow them fishing time during the summer fishing season.

In 1981, the 50 native and 18 nonnative permit holders for the Unalakleet subdistrict received $341,000 for their salmon catch, and in 1982, the total was $489,000. The earnings were not evenly distributed, ranging from $2,000 to $50,000, with nonnative earnings on top. But the average in 1982 was about $7,200. The average share for assistants in 1982 was $2,400. It is a well-established fact that fishermen's earnings increase with the amount of time they spend fishing. Costs must be deducted from the earnings, of course, and those include equipment of all kinds, maintenance, and fuel. Suffice it to say that for persons who fish all or most of the twenty-five or so fishing periods each year, costs (over $6,300) exceed the average earnings of the native entry-permit holder (gross earnings of $7,200, minus assistant's share of $2,400, equals $4,200 for the permit holder). Some fishermen fish less, earn less, and have fewer costs. Some fish more and earn more. Up to a point, expenses increase relative to the amount of time a fisherman spends on the water, but no fisherman has to invest much more than $6,300 annually, plus interest ranging from $900 to $1,200, in his operation.

Native fishermen have also entered the nascent herring fishing industry that recently opened in Unalakleet. No entry permits are required, but start-up costs are extremely high for profitable fishing. Many Unalakleet natives entered with their commercial salmon fishing equipment (which also provides some of the subsistence fishing equipment for most of them). About one-hundred native fishermen earned $330,000 in 1982, exclusive of costs. The fifteen Unalakleet residents who hold permits in the Yukon and Bristol Bay fisheries earned another $350,000.

Nuclear families in Unalakleet could not get by if their sole source of support was from the fish processing plant (average income $1,600), commercial fishing ($7,000 or $3,500, with high fuel and equipment costs), National Guard income (aver-

age of $1,000), native and ACC stores and state schools (as clerks, custodians, and kitchen helpers, at from $5.00 to $9.00 per hour), trapping (whereby 15 men average about $3,500 annually, with high fuel and equipment costs), occasional construction or fire-fighting employment, or piecework from knitting and weaving musk ox hair garments. Indeed, nuclear families are seldom independent. Rather, households often consist of more persons than a nuclear family, and "families" usually comprise more than one household. Income, equipment, and the naturally occurring resources that have been extracted are all shared within the family. For example, the trapper is provided money for operating costs by an employed parent or brother. The trapper, then, shares the proceeds from trapping as well as the products from the hunt with his relatives. The person who is employed occasionally as a fire fighter uses some of those funds to purchase fishing equipment, reload equipment, or fuel, and so forth. The native employed full-time at the village corporation or at any other job pools and shares his or her resources with all other members of the larger family. A person's labor, too, is freely given within families and wider networks of kinspersons and among friends. Thus, a person's productive capacities are treated much as goods, equipment, and income: they are shared without fee, not sold as a commodity or used solely for personal gain.

Welfare and Transfers of In-Kind Services: The Unearned Side of The Public Economy

Unalakleet is not only dependent on public sources of money for most of its infrastructure and its earned income but is also dependent on public sources for all of its unearned income. In the early 1980s, Unalakleet families, much more so than Wainwright families, required welfare assistance in the form of cash and food stamps. In 1981, for instance, a monthly average of 59 families and 12 elderly persons received welfare assistance through the Food Stamp program, Aid for Dependent Children, Old Age Assistance, and Aid to the Permanently Disabled. Those benefits, which totaled $232,000 for the year, were paid

to families representing 226 people, that is, at a rate of a little more than $1,000 per capita. The 226 persons represent nearly one-third of the total native population.

Field observations made it dear that no recipient of transfer payments subsists solely on those payments. In every instance, some member of the recipient family engaged in subsistence activities. And in all instances, the recipient families shared resources, equipment, and labor with closely related kinspersons who resided in other households. Even the recipients of Old Age Assistance prepared and preserved foods, which they shared with others. More often than not, the elders had received the unprepared foods from relatives and friends as gifts. Elders, persons known to be impoverished, and families in various stages of transition (e.g., woman-headed households), are treated with concern and kindness. Any other treatment would be unthinkable in Unalakleet.

The recipients of special kindnesses from Kinspersons and friends express their own kindnesses in many ways. They may baby-sit, help to process foods, assist with repairs, or merely provide warm words of gratitude. They are not obligated to reciprocate. By custom and convention, they give and they share.

Unearned assistance also is provided to natives through services and goods. We did not collect dollar equivalents, but unemployment insurance, energy assistance, weatherization (home insulation), counseling, and health services are delivered to natives. At least one-third of the households receive energy assistance, which defrays about one-fourth of the household's energy costs. We estimate the average annual income per native household in Unalakleet from all sources, earned and unearned, at $20,000.^[1]

[1] Income from full-time employment is estimated at $1.54 million: from fishing (salmon and herring) in Norton Sound and elsewhere at $1 million; from private businesses at $350,000; from trapping at $52,000; from part-time employment , fees, and piecework at $80,000; and from welfare and energy assistance at $268,000. Unalakleet native households (164) average 4.3 persons, so that the 1982 per capita income was $4,700 (rounded)—less than half of the estimated per capita income in Wainwright.

Wainwright

Full-time employment is unusually high in Wainwright, where, in late 1982, there were 139 FTE jobs for a population of 506 persons. The actual number of jobs available throughout the year (which, when aggregated, yielded 139 FTE) was about 190 (many construction jobs lasted for only a few months). Virtually any native adult male could find work. The NSB policy of avoiding union contracts and hiring natives first gave a distinct advantage to natives seeking work, an advantage not shared by Unalakleet natives in their own village. When CIPs come on line, the OC frequently has the contract, and natives are employed. Even then, the native population, which comprises 78 percent of the village, held only 63 percent of the jobs (97), whereas nonnatives, comprising 22 percent of the village, held the other 37 percent (42). For the most part, nonnatives were transient. They resided in barracks, the hotel, and other temporary housing when construction projects were under way and left on completion.

According to Luton (pers. comm.), natives were hired for jobs that were based on cost-plus contracts, but when contracts had a fixed price and completion time was crucial, nonnatives were hired. Nonnatives held most of the skilled jobs—super-visor, chief mechanic, and so forth.

The NSB created 120 of the public sector jobs. This figure, alone, conveys an impression of the importance of the borough to village economic affairs. Most of the employment, either full-time or during the construction season, is with CIPs, and the rates of pay for the least skilled general construction jobs in 1982 and 1983 were extremely high, averaging about $23.00 per hour. The hourly pay range was from $6.00 to $30.00. We estimate the average for all pay in Wainwright (for natives) at $20.00 per hour. The average pay for whites on CIPs was about $35.00 per hour in 1982.

Although some construction projects continue for eight or nine months, until the period of darkness and the most bitter winter cold, Luton (1985) estimated that the average native worked no more than four months each year on construction jobs. A large amount of money relative to needs could be made

in that period of time, and subsistence interests could be pursued as well. Men often lay off work to hunt or fish. Liberal NSB policies accommodate the subsistence interests of the laborer-hunter.

Remuneration is often great in the skilled service positions—health care, teaching, some government administrative jobs—and in a very large number of the skilled construction jobs. One white couple, each an educator, earned $200,000 annually, while receiving free housing, utilities, and a travel allowance. All of the teachers are married couples. They receive housing, most utility costs, and joint salaries of about $90,000 annually. The top native earner drew $60,000 annually. Native employees of the schools work in kitchen, custodial, and teacher's aide positions—most of them part-time—for from $9.00 to about $14.00 per hour.

In addition to their full-time and part-time employment, about twenty Wainwright men attended National Guard meetings, for which they were compensated, and Wainwright residents received financial benefits from HUD (federal) housing subsidies, Indian Health Service health and welfare benefits, and NSB per diem payments for attendance at various meetings. Some households also received fuel subsidies from the state. The years 1982 and 1983 were especially active ones for CIPs in Wainwright. They represent the apogee for the CIP income that flowed through the village. Projects slowed by nearly 75 percent between 1983 and 1985. Luton (1985: 117) estimates that the average native household income was $40,000 in 1982.

The per capita income for 1982, estimated at $10,000, allows Wainwright residents to purchase the technology and the fuel they require to extract naturally occurring resources and also to be selective in the resources they extract. Prices on all goods purchased in Wainwright are high. Prices and expenditures will be assessed below.

Wainwright's impressive public sector growth and the even more impressive growth of the NSB are based on oil-related revenues. Neither the NSB, the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, the Olgoonik Corporation, nor Eskimo entrepreneurs control the extraction, processing, or distribution of oil. As a matter of fact, only two Wainwright natives are employed in the

oil industry, working a week on and a week off as laborers for Pingo, a firm servicing the oil industry at Prudhoe Bay. The "skilled" labor position and the engineering and production management positions are occupied almost entirely by nonnatives from the southwestern region of the United States.

Some Marked Contrasts in Earnings From Employment

Gambell earnings are so tiny and the sources so constricted that · comparisons with Unalakleet and Wainwright are stark. But even if we look closely at the differences between earnings in Unalakleet and Wainwright we see a marked contrast. Luton (1985) estimated that the average native laborer in Wainwright worked about four months annually (or about 600 hours), at $23.00 per hour. The average Wainwright laborer would earn about $14,700 annually, while shouldering no costs or risks. The average Unalakleet entry-permit holder would earn about $4,200 for about 600 hours work in the salmon fishery and $2,200 (assuming that each had a helper) for 216 hours of work in the herring fishery, while shouldering all of the costs and risks. The $7.85-per-hour earnings evaporate when expenses are tallied. I will assess Unalakleet fishery economics below and explain why fishermen continue to fish even when costs appear to exceed benefits.

The differences between Wainwright and Unalakleet are dramatic, and they are especially interesting when we note that Unalakleet fishermen are operating in the private sector market and that Wainwright laborers are receiving public sector funds for public sector projects. The question for oil age Eskimos is, what will the economic base be in the near future?