Hearing Office To Address Wave of Denial Appeals

CNMI News
Thursday March 27, 2008


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‘Wave’ of appeals floods Labor

By Emmanuel T. Erediano
Variety News Staff



A “WAVE” of appeals from denial orders that were the “natural” result of resolving thousands of pending applications and labor cases is now hitting the Department of Labor’s administrative hearing office.

Labor hearing officer Jerry Cody, in an interview yesterday, said they will deal with a lot of appeals by taking action.

Starting next week, Cody said, the administrative hearing office will hold hearings or take appropriate actions on 40 denial appeals every Thursday.

He said he will be working with another hearing officer, Herbert Soll.

Cody said in the first two months of this year, the hearing office received over 250 denial appeals.

These appeals are not considered backlog but as the “natural” result of the labor division’s efforts in resolving 11,000 pending applications and labor cases of the previous years.

Labor Division Director Barry Hirshbein earlier said they have cleaned up the backlog, and will resolve all applications and labor cases in a short period of time.

Every time there is an increase in the number of cases the labor division resolves, the hearing office will deal with the same number of appeals.

Cody said they have already started announcing the names of the workers scheduled to appear for the hearing on denial appeals, and they will continue to make similar announcements every week.

Employees who have filed appeals with Labor should check the newspapers every Monday to see if they are among those scheduled for the Thursday hearing, Cody said.