Saturday, December 06, 2008
Local
Saturday, December 06, 2008

'Labor does excellent job in detecting sponsorships'

By Ferdie de la Torre
Reporter

The Department of Labor has been doing an excellent job in detecting sponsorship scams, according to Labor Deputy Secretary Cinta Kaipat.

In her another interim progress report on the implementation of the controversial Public Law 15-108 (new labor reform law), Kaipat told the Legislature that Labor Director Barry Hirsbein is doing “an outstanding job” of finding sham sponsorships in the employers' applications that are submitted to Labor.

Kaipat said the director and his staff review 4,000 to 5,000 applications a month, and they identify about 300 to 400 questionable applications in an average quarter.

“Those applications are turned down, and some appealed,” she said.

The deputy secretary said they have also succeeded in reducing the number of alien workers in Temporary Work Authorization status.

Kaipat said they have done this by cleaning up all the pending cases from 2007 and prior years, and by instituting new rules for cases pending elsewhere.

“When workers file cases in federal or Commonwealth courts, the Labor Department asks for a court order if the worker is to be permitted to remain in the Commonwealth while out of status,” she said.

Kaipat said they allow alien workers who have cases with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, National Labor Review Board, and U.S. Labor to obtain TWAs without any affirmative action from the adjudicating agency, but that they are considering changing that policy.

“The EEOC alone has more than 100 pending cases from the CNMI that were filed in 2006 and prior years and they have no estimate when they might reach these cases,” she pointed out.