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Terminated worker barred from returning to CNMI
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Posted on Mar 18 2005
A nonresident worker was barred for one year from returning to the Commonwealth for employment after his contract was terminated for alleged financial misconduct.
According to the Department of Labor, Manuel Reyes cannot re-enter the CNMI as a nonresident worker until July 11, 2005, one year after his departure from the Commonwealth.
In an administrative order, hearing officer Maya Kara recalled that Reyes’s former labor permit as a driver with Commercial Trading of Saipan, which operates The Water Company, expired on Oct. 6, 2004.
On Sept. 2, 2004, CWM International Inc. filed an application for expiration transfer on behalf of Reyes. The Labor department denied the application on the basis that an employee who has been terminated for cause is not eligible for transfer. The appeal followed.
At the hearing, it was learned that The Water Company served Reyes a notice of termination on June 4, 2004, four months before the worker’s contract was to expire.
The termination notice stated that Reyes would be paid through July 4, 2004 and he would be provided a repatriation ticket.
CWM International testified that Reyes had in fact departed the CNMI in July 2004.
Kara said however that the transfer application must be affirmed. She noted that the department has no record that Reyes contested the termination.
“Had he contested it, there would have been a hearing set to determine the validity of the former employer’s allegations. Rather than contest the termination, however, it appears that [Reyes] sought a transfer to a new employer,” she said.
She added, “An employee who is dismissed for cause, and who does not contest the termination, cannot avoid the consequences of his conduct by simply transferring to a new employer.”
