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‘Garment workers not barred from working outside industry’
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Posted on Mar 22 2005
Like other nonresident employees, garment workers can actually work outside the industry as long as they qualify for other jobs, said the Babauta administration.
“Why shouldn’t they be? The law applies to all nonresident workers,” said press secretary Peter A. Callaghan yesterday.
This issue, he said, was clarified by Department of Labor legal counsel Kevin Lynch during a Cabinet meeting last week.
“He basically said that there’s nothing that prohibits them [garment workers] from working outside the industry. When they apply for temporary work assignments, there is nothing that precludes them from working in other industries,” said Callaghan.
For instance, a garment sewer who can also do sales can get a sales work in the CNMI.
“The department looks at the employment history and when you are found to be qualified for another category, you can go ahead,” he said.
Labor officials earlier said that the department has began to allow some displaced garment workers to find work in other industries.
DOL director Dean Tenorio said the department grants temporary permits for displaced garment workers to find work outside the industry.
“…With people who have pending wage cases [or] pending claims, we allow them [to work] temporarily in a job class while their cases are being investigated,” Tenorio had said.
During a recent Senate hearing, former Labor deputy secretary and now Commerce Secretary Andrew Salas expressed his opposition to the move.
Salas said the current policy “is that we can only allow a garment factory worker to transfer to another garment factory, not outside the industry.”
He further cited that if all 15,000 garment workers go out of the industry, they would end up competing with resident workers.
Tenorio had conceded that the law “provides they can’t be transferred outside of the industry.” But he maintained that the issuance of work permits is only temporary, not a permanent employment status.
