Local
Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Kaipat notes large increase in denial of applications to hire alien workers

By Ferdie de la Torre
Reporter

Labor deputy secretary Cinta Kaipat has noted a large increase in the number of applications filed by employers to hire alien workers that were eventually denied by Labor.

Kaipat said appeals of these denials have been filed in 627 cases from June 2008 through March 2009.

“All of these appeals have been processed efficiently by the [Labor] Hearing Office, in addition to its normal caseload of labor complaints,” said Kaipat in her interim progress report submitted Wednesday last week to the Legislature on the implementation of the Public Law 15-108. She was the author of the controversial labor reform law when she was a representative.

The deputy secretary, however, did not cite figures in her report to support her claim of a “large” increase in Labor denials.

Kaipat said Labor director Barry Hirshbein has subjected applications to employ alien workers to tighter scrutiny, using Labor's new automated process.

She said the careful scrutiny has been done to weed out employers who are insolvent, who lack the necessary resources to pay their foreign workers, who may not be providing a real job, or who are otherwise unqualified.

The deputy secretary claimed that Hirshbein's disqualification has been upheld in many cases, and the employers have been denied permission to employ foreign workers.

Kaipat listed three “beneficial effects” of such scrutiny.

First, she said, the number of unfit employers has been reduced very substantially, resulting in fewer labor complaints from foreign workers about not being paid.

Second, Kaipat said, the number of employment scams set up solely for the purpose of allowing foreign workers to remain in the CNMI while unemployed has been reduced, resulting in fewer law enforcement problems.

Finally, she pointed out, the number of U.S citizens hired has increased because a business can hire a U.S. citizen without any scrutiny of its finances by Labor.

In the same report, Kaipat disclosed that in the last three years, Labor processed and completed the repatriation of over 16,000 alien workers.