DOLI rules in favor of guest worker
Division of Labor Hearing Officer Jerry Cody has ordered Y.O. Saipan Corp. to offer the job of store manager of Leonora Angello after the Department of Labor and Immigration referred her to the company almost a year and a half ago for a management position.
The Y.O. labor battle was a carry-over from Ms. Angello’s initial labor case against Louis Vuitton Saipan which terminated her three times in one week, after she had contacted DOLI about their unfair labor practices that were in violation of the CNMI Nonresident Worker’s Act.
The Louis Vuitton case is currently in the CNMI Supreme Court and the U.S. District Court.
“The biggest winners here are the qualified local workers in the CNMI who can apply without fear of retaliation and be legally placed, if necessary, in the better jobs that have been held by pre-selected contract workers,” said Ms. Angello.
In the past, Saipan companies have used all sorts of tricks and schemes to keep qualified local workers from the better paying supervisory and entry managerial positions by creating unrealistic job qualifications and by telling local applicants that these positions are only for renewals of contract workers, like Louis Vuitton did to Ms. Angello in 1998, after she became their top salesperson and sales group leader.
Following her Louis Vuitton nightmare, Ms. Angello was referred by DOLI for several positions, four of which are now DOLI agency cases.
Y.O. Saipan is the first case won in favor of Ms. Angello after she was: 1) previously threatened by her Louis Vuitton supervisors, 2) accused of theft and terminated, 3) rehired and terminated in retaliation, 4) later rehired and harassed about a theft that she didn’t commit, 5) terminated again by the same company (LVMH), and 6) defamed by letters and testimony that tried to undermine her DOLI cases, made to endure belittling questioning by stateside attorneys who have waged an expensive and degrading campaign against her, and finally, being subjected to the loss of her co-worker friends and a normal life.
The DOLI order on May 9, 2000 vindicates Ms. Angello after an unfounded attack on her personal and professional life by Y.O. Corp. and Eason & Halsell.
