Labor Wants Floating Benchmark to Prioritize Hiring of Locals

Labor wants floating benchmark to prioritize hiring of locals
Wednesday, 10 March 2010 00:00 By Gemma Q. Casas - Reporter
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THE local Department of Labor is asking the Legislature to pass legislation that will change the mandatory 30 percent local hiring preference to a floating benchmark based on the population of U.S. citizens and permanent residents on the islands in a bid to reduce unemployment among them.

Deputy Labor Secretary Jacinta M. Kaipat said increasing the employment rate of U.S. citizens, U.S. permanent residents and CNMI permanent residents will strengthen the islands’ foreign-labor dependent economy.

“We are proposing to change our hiring preference from a flat percentage (20 percent rising to 30 percent) to a floating benchmark governed by the percentage of the population that is U.S. citizens, U.S. permanent residents and CNMI permanent residents,” Kaipat said in her written testimony submitted to the Senate Standing Committee on Judiciary and Governmental Operations which is reviewing House Bill 17-25, or the Immigration Conformity Act of 2010.

“As foreign workers depart the commonwealth, the percentage of ‘U.S. qualified’ persons in the commonwealth’s working population has been rising. We estimate that it is now about 40 percent of the total workforce and is still rising. A floating benchmark serves us better as a practical matter and is similar to the ‘hiring goals’ that have been used in the U.S. for many years,” she added.

H.B. 17-25 is proposed to be lumped with another bill pre-filed in the Senate.

This omnibus bill will amend parts of Public Law 15-108, or the Commonwealth Employment Act of 2007.

If enacted, the omnibus bill will delete all regulations of the defunct CNMI Division of Immigration and “move any necessary language over to the labor regulations.”

Kaipat acknowledged that the CNMI’s power to admit and remove aliens in the commonwealth was superseded when the U.S. extended federal immigration law to the islands on Nov. 28, 2009 under U.S. Public Law 110-229 or the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008.

“Thus, any commonwealth law governing the ‘admission of aliens’ from foreign countries into the commonwealth or the forcible ‘removal of aliens’ from the commonwealth back to a foreign country has been preempted, or made unenforceable, by U.S. P.L. 110-229 as passed by Congress,” she said.

Among the major changes that DOL wants is the reorganization of the department.

Kaipat said DOL should be restructured to serve the needs of the commonwealth.

She said the old management structure with layers of supervisors is no longer needed.

“That structure is expensive to maintain in terms of personnel costs and freezes us to a structure that was geared to a situation we faced a decade ago. In addition, I need to take personnel out of areas dealing with foreign workers and deploy them in functions helping U.S. citizens get jobs, which is our first priority,” she said.

This will mean dividing the employment services division and widening its scope.

Kaipat said there are enough jobs for U.S. citizens in the CNMI.

“We have enough jobs in the commonwealth’s economy at present to employ every single U.S. citizen in the commonwealth who wants a job. We currently have more than 9,000 jobs filled by foreign workers. If the U.S. Census Bureau provided us with the same services they provide to every state and county in the U.S., I could tell you how many unemployed people we have,” she said.

“But the U.S. Census refuses to give us the vital information they provide mainland jurisdictions so we are left to guess about unemployment in the commonwealth. However, we know that we had about 11,000 people filing W-2 forms last year and we know we have about 32,000 U.S. qualified residents — that is, U.S. citizens, U.S. permanent residents and CNMI permanent residents,” she added.

The CNMI government lost its anti-federalization case against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Labor late last year in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

One of its major arguments is that federalization will wipe out the estimated 16,000 remaining foreign workers on the islands by 2014 under a federalized immigration system.