‘Incomplete’ work history rebounds on worker

A nonresident worker was ordered to stop working for her current employer due to inconsistencies in the work history documents she submitted to the Department of Labor.

Evidence showed that the affidavit submitted by worker Li Jinshun in 2002 made no mention of her work experience as an accountant for any company. No education whatsoever was also listed in the 2002 affidavit, which she turned in along with her application to work as a sewer for Sako Corp.

On Sept. 22, 2003, KSK Corp. filed a transfer application to employ Li as an accountant for the corporation’s various poker establishments on Saipan.

In the 2003 affidavit, however, Li listed that she had worked for four years as an accountant in Jilin Province, China from May 1994 to July 1998. The affidavit also mentioned that Li had completed high school and college, graduating from Gilm Rim College in 1992.

Based on these inconsistencies, the Division of Labor denied KSK Corp.’s application on Feb. 4, 2004.

The division said Li had “willfully misrepresented her work history on the Nonresident Worker’s Affidavit, which she signed in support of the application.” The division also argued that Li’s failure to list the accountant job in her 2002 affidavit proved that she was fabricating the job to create the requisite work experience for her pending application with KSK.

Li and KSK denied that Li fabricated the job, but admitted that the prior affidavit had contained incomplete descriptions of Li’s work history.

In an administrative order, Labor hearing officer Jerry Cody noted that labor laws require an alien worker to provide a complete and accurate listing of all jobs previously held.

“In the affidavit, the worker ‘declare[s] under penalty of perjury’ that the information in the affidavit is ‘true, correct and complete,’” he said.

Cody expressed doubt over Li’s assertion that she worker for years in China as an accountant. “It strains credulity to believe that a college-educated accountant in China would leave the accounting job voluntarily to work in a Chinese factory as a garment worker, as Li claimed.”

In both of her affidavits, Li listed that she worked as a sewer at a garment factory in Jilin, China from 1998-2002 (or after she worked as an accountant).

“Even assuming that Li’s recent affidavit correctly states her accounting experience, that would establish that Li failed to provide ‘correct and complete’ information to the Division of Labor in the 2002 affidavit that she signed in order to enter the CNMI,” Cody said.

Nevertheless, Cody gave Li 45 days to find a new employer who should submit an employment application to the Division of Labor within the same period.