Labor allows worker to find new employer

The Department of Labor has allowed a nonresident worker to seek another employer despite denying her employment application, which listed the prospective employer’s wrong mailing address.

Labor hearing officer Jerry Cody said the wrong mailing address on the employment application filed by businesswoman Maria E. Pelisamen on behalf of Justina L. Liberato was not the worker’s fault.

Cody noted, however, that it was Liberato who personally filed the application with the Labor Division on behalf of Pelisamen. He said that the Nonresident Worker’s Affidavit attached to the application listed the worker’s former employer’s mailing address instead of Pelisamen’s.

In an Oct. 21, 2005 administrative order, Cody excused the untimely filing of the employment application, saying that giving the Labor Division the wrong address was through no fault of the worker. Nevertheless, she affirmed the Labor Division’s denial of the application, since Pelisamen failed to correct certain deficiencies in the application.

In the order, Cody noted that on Feb. 7, 2005, Pelisamen timely filed the application to hire Liberato as commercial cleaner for her Twin J’s catering business. On the same day, the Labor Division issued Pelisamen, through Liberato, a notice of deficiency due to the lack of a certified job vacancy announcement and surety bond in the application.

Cody noted that the Labor Division never received corrective actions for several months, prompting it to send another deficiency notice by mail unknowingly to the wrong address listed on the affidavit attached to application on May 9.

The Labor Division’s processing section denied the application for failure to correct the JVA deficiency on June 21 and mailed it to the same address on June 28. Pelisamen and Liberato appealed the denial, with the trader saying that she did not receive the notices by mail because they were sent to the wrong address.

Cody affirmed the denial after Pelisamen testified during an administrative hearing that she had advertised the job vacancy, but never received a certified JVA from the Division of Employment and Training Services. Pelisamen reportedly testified that she never delivered a certified JVA to the Labor Division’s processing section.

Cody did not impose a monetary sanction on Pelisamen, saying that the denial of the application is sufficiently punitive to the employer.

The hearing officer granted Liberato 45 days to seek a new employer and have a labor permit application filed on her behalf within that period, or she faces possible deportation.