Senate votes on business reform bill today
The Senate is expected to vote today on the Omnibus Labor and Business Reform bill that it has extensively revamped following three public hearings and several meetings held with both administration officials and private sector leaders.
Senators have scheduled a session this morning where the proposal under HB 12-39 is one of key legislation up for voting on the floor.
The Senate Committee on Resources, Economic, Development and Program, chaired by Floor Leader Pete P. Reyes, continued to hammer out a compromise version yesterday with several agreements reached with both parties.
A proposal to hike by $1.25 the wage to be offered to locals compared to nonresident workers on the same job position has been scrapped by the committee which decided to throw out the proposed repeal of the resident workers fair compensation law.
A constant source of rift between the government and the business sector, that law requires companies to provide the same benefits granted to their nonresident workers, such as subsidized food and housing and transportation, to local employees either in cash equivalent or in-kind.
Although enacted into law in 1995 and amended last year by the Legislature, the requirement has yet been implemented due to failure by the CNMI government to come up with rules and regulations workable for the companies.
Under HB 12-39 offered by House Speaker Benigno R. Fitial, the resident workers compensation is one of the laws he has sought to be repealed. The others included the hiring moratorium, the three-year stay limit, the $100,000 foreign investment security deposit, the garment attrition and the denial of certificate of origin for garment manufacturers violating labor laws.
Major changes
The Senate committee last week agreed to pull out the proposed abolition of the law that mandates guest workers to leave the
Commonwealth after three years of consecutive stay here, noting that such regulation is not expected to impact the business community in the near future.
Signed by Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio in March 1999, its first full impact will be felt on March 2002 when companies, including hotels, will have to send home a lot of their workers to their countries and be barred for re-entry into the CNMI for at least six months.
The committee likewise decided to provide flexibility to garment firms on the proposed 30 percent ratio of locals in the management and supervisory positions by allowing a schedule in meeting the requirement.
In the first six months from the signing of the Omnibus, the ratio will be at 20 percent, then additional five percent for the next six months. During the second year, garment manufacturers must hire 30 percent of their managers and supervisors from the local workforce.
At the same time, flexibility will also be given to the factories in tapping the pool of available guest workers, so long as such action does not exceed beyond the 15,727 employment ceiling set out by the government in March last year.
While business leaders have fully embraced the measure passed by the lower house in March, the Senate decided to amend the proposal and re-draft it in fear that the Omnibus could court criticisms from the federal government of backsliding on local labor and immigration reforms.
They have also expressed concern that the governor would only reject the proposal in the form passed by the House, noting his objections on several of the provisions.
The House leadership has said that the bill is intended to assist businesses in times of the economic crisis on the islands sparked by the Asian recession which has pulled down tourist arrivals to the CNMI for the past three years.
