DOL proposed regs raise fees, allow casual work

The Department of Labor’s proposed regulations aim to raise the nonresident workers’ surety bond and other fees. It would also allow casual employment of workers and temporary transfers within the same business.

DOL legal counsel Kevin Lynch and Division of Labor director Dean Tenorio said the bond’s coverage would be equal to six months’ wages from the current two or three months’ wages.

Lynch said the current amount has been deemed insufficient in today’s standards, noting that the current regulations had not been changed since its adoption in 1988.

“The current amount is inadequate given the fact that medical costs, transport costs, etc. have substantially increased since 1988,” Lynch said.

He said the medical coverage would also increase to $10,000 under the proposed rules.

Other changes would also include the elimination of exit requirement for immediate relatives prior to working in the CNMI as well as allowing for casual employment.

“This [casual employment] is a new concept,” said Tenorio.

Under the proposal, casual employment would allow for eight hours of work within 30 days. This still may change because the proposed regulations remain open to public comments.

Under the proposal, temporary transfers may also be allowed in certain businesses such as the hotel, garment, and construction.

But DOL officials noted that temporary transfers would be subject to conditions to prevent abuses such as the tendency to share employee’s time among sister or affiliate companies.

Overall, Lynch said the proposed regulations hope to bring stricter provisions to protect law-abiding employers and employees and to prevent abuses in the system.

The proposal’s “doubly hot issue,” acknowledges Lynch, is allowing nonresident workers to have more than one job.

But he said, “the reason there is to give greater flexibility for both employers and employees” to hire or get hired, especially during certain seasons without having to bring in additional people to the CNMI from off-island.

Lynch noted that the proposed multiple job provision basically holds the primary employer responsible for housing and medical cost—except for the medical costs incurred as a result of second employment—of a nonresident worker.

The proposed regulations would also limit the work time of the employee in the second employment.

Responding to the concern on the possible rise in medical cost as a result of “overworked” and “stressed out” workers, DOL officials said they hope that employees would use their sound judgment that “they won’t work the employees to death.”

Tenorio admits that the proposed regulations would result in more paperwork for employers and employees to get things done.

The department was heavily criticized when it initially raised the issue of second jobs for nonresident workers last year. The local community generally opposed it believing that it would take jobs away from local residents.

Authorities noted that multiple work or part-time jobs for alien workers is not prohibited under the existing Nonresident Workers Act.

They said that the policy shift should have been done a long time ago.

The issue surfaced only recently following a court decision that essentially acknowledged that a nonresident worker is not prohibited from getting more than one job in the CNMI.

Lynch and Tenorio spoke during yesterday’ Society of Human Resources and Management forum at the Hyatt Regency Hotel’s Giovanni Restaurant.