Multiple jobs regulations adopted

The Commonwealth yesterday adopted comprehensive amendments to labor regulations governing nonresident workers, allowing them to work for more than one employer on the islands.

Stressing the importance of a thorough change in the CNMI’s labor policy, the Babauta administration assured that it would work with the private sector as it adjusts to the new rules.

Gov. Juan N. Babauta’s legal counsel, Steven Newman, said the change in alien labor policy is the first after several years.

“We anticipate the smooth transition as the rules become effective,” said Newman. “The administration will work with the private sector—employers and employees—as they adjust to these new regulations.”

Newman said the new rules take effect 10 calendar days after yesterday’s publication in the Commonwealth Register and Labor Secretary Joaquin Tenorio’s certification of the regulations’ adoption.

Newman said the new rules take effect 10 calendar days after yesterday’s publication of Labor Secretary Joaquin Tenorio’s certification of the regulations’ adoption in the Commonwealth Register.

He also commended others who helped, including assistant attorney general Kevin Lynch, Labor director Dean Tenorio, Labor deputy director Gil San Nicolas, and lawyer Joe Hill, who represented Filipino worker Bonifacio Sagana in a federal court case against the former CNMI Department of Labor and Immigration.

The Labor Department came up with the regulations pursuant to a settlement reached between the government and Sagana in the civil lawsuit. U.S. District Court chief judge Alex R. Munson had consented to the settlement agreement.

Secretary Tenorio certified the adoption of the regulations last Friday. The first version of the new rules was published in the Commonwealth Register on April 26, but it had to be republished to incorporate public comments in the draft. In certifying the regulations’ adoption, Tenorio said the appropriate time for public comment expired without resulting in the modification of the republished versions.

The new rules allow nonresident workers to engage in multiple employments, including casual work. Local preference in hiring remains in effect.

“Nonresident workers have no right to secure work from other employers during the first year of employment unless the primary employer employs nonresident workers working under approved contracts for reduced hours,” the new rules state.

After the worker’s first year of employment, however, the rules mandate the primary employer to sign a Primary Employer Permission Form allowing the worker to work for one or more other employers if requested, unless the employer provides a valid business reason why the employee should not be allowed secondary employment.

Valid business reasons include scheduling conflict, protection of trade secrets and productivity issues. For those working under approved reduced hour schedule, the rules allow these workers to seek secondary employment despite the primary employer’s objections.

“If employee makes a written request to work for a secondary employer to their primary employer and the primary employer does not deny the request within 20 days, the primary employer’s consent is presumed,” the rules state.

The regulations provide workers protection from employers who may seek to reduce their work hours, banning the employers from hiring new workers under secondary employment contracts during the duration of the approved work reduction.

However, the rules allow the workers to take advantage of this provision during the duration of an amended contract for an increase or reduction of hours by allowing them to seek secondary employment.

The Labor director may approve a secondary employment contract that is less than full-time employment, but the contract must state the weekly maximum hours the workers’ services are anticipated.

“The secondary employer does not have to guarantee any minimum number of hours that they will require the services of a nonresident worker in the Secondary Employer Employment Contract. The secondary employer is not liable for any wages for hours that the nonresident worker does not actually perform any service or labor, unless the …contract states that they are so liable,” according to the regulations.

If the alien worker works more hours than the maximum hours for secondary employment, the worker and his employer are in violation of law “to the extent that they exceeded the maximum hours.”

If the secondary employment contract, however, provides full-time employment and contains a provision on overtime, the nonresident worker may work more than 40 hours in a week.

The regulations state that primary and secondary employers may enter into a memorandum of understanding on division of employer’s responsibilities to the workers. Such an agreement may cover subjects such as medical, board, lodging and repatriation expenses for the worker—and even scheduling arrangements.

In the absence of such agreement, the primary employer’s obligations will not change, except for medical expense obligations, which will be proportionately shared with the secondary employer pursuant to the regulations.

“The primary employer shall remain liable for all medical expenses incurred by the nonresident worker except those incurred as a result of injury, illness, or other condition requiring medical care suffered within the scope of employment of the secondary employer. The secondary employer will be liable for all medical expenses incurred as a result of injury or illness the employee suffers within the scope of their employment,” the rules state.

Employers who want to hire nonresident workers employed with a primary employer may apply for the secondary employment’s approval from the Labor Department as if they were primary employers.

A nonresident workers’ secondary employment application must include the secondary employer employment contract, a copy of the nonresident workers’ entry permit and a two-year work certification form if the employee seeks work of different category from his primary employment, among other requirements. Secondary employment may be renewed.

The Labor Department also allowed nonresident workers to engage in casual employment of up to 16 hours in a 30-day period, subject to its approval.

The new rules allow alien workers’ immediate relatives to work if they entered the CNMI pursuant to 3 CMC § 4437(i). The worker, however, will be required to abandon his IR entry status. “The former IR shall not be required to exit and reenter the Commonwealth to effectuate a change in status.”