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Firm permanently barred from hiring alien workers
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Posted on Apr 03 2005
A Chinese-owned company was permanently disqualified from hiring nonresident workers for abandoning its employees and failing to notify the Department of Labor of the business closure.
Labor hearing officer Jerry Cody also ordered Hanford Development Inc. to pay a fine of $6,500 and another $6,343.99 in contractual damages.
Further, Cody referred the names of five nonresidents to the Attorney General’s Office for possible deportation proceedings upon finding that there is no record of their departure despite their having no current work or immigration status in the Commonwealth.
Records showed that Hanford owned and operated a restaurant business on Saipan eight years ago. From November 1997 through December 1998, Hanford applied for and obtained permits for 13 nonresident workers.
Within two months of obtaining the permits, Hanford closed its restaurant business.
“The circumstances of the closure are not known; however, it is uncontested that Hanford failed to notify the department of the closure, or to arrange for these 13 workers to be transferred or repatriated,” Cody said.
Such conduct was in violation of the employment contracts, which require the employer to issue a written notice of termination to workers in the event of a business closure.
Of the 13 workers, only two approached the department and filed a labor case, claiming they had been abandoned when Hanford’s restaurant closed.
The Labor Department opened a compliance agency case and began an investigation. However, the department failed to complete the investigation for more than six years.
One of the two complainants, Li Dong Mei, failed to appear at the hearing. As a result, Cody dismissed her complaint.
Meanwhile, Cody awarded contract damages of $6,343.99 to the other complainant, Lu Xiu Li, whose testimony was not contradicted due to Hanford’s failure to send any representative to the hearing.
Cody noted that five of the complainants transferred, departed, or changed their status through marriage. Five others have no current work or immigration status and there is no record of their departure from the Commonwealth.
The status of the only remaining worker was not stated in the administrative order.
