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Labor conducts headcount of CNMI’s garment workers
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Posted on Jun 02 2005
The Department of Labor is adopting a more flexible approach in enforcing the maximum number of nonresident workers set for each garment factory in the CNMI.
Acting Labor Secretary Dean O. Tenorio said yesterday that the ongoing headcount of garment workers on island was aimed primarily at counter-checking government records with that of the garment industry and ensuring that the industry in general was within its ceiling of 15,727 nonresident workers.
With the recent closure of three garment factories, however, the Labor Department is becoming more and more accommodating of the existing companies’ requests for waiver of their individual allocation.
The Labor Department is currently gathering reports from garment factories on the number of nonresident workers they employ.
The headcount, the first to be conducted since the Jan. 1 lifting of garment quotas, comes pursuant to Public Law 11-76, which imposes a cap on the number of alien workers in the garment industry.
The law requires the Labor Department to conduct a headcount twice a year.
Acting Labor public information officer Jesse Atoigue said the headcount was also a means to validate the department’s computerized monitoring system that generates the number of nonresidents in the garment industry daily.
On June 1, the deadline expired for the filing of reports by garment factories.
But Tenorio said that the companies have a seven-day grace period to submit their reports to the department.
According to the Amended Alien Labor Rules and Regulations, failure to submit the required report will result in a sanction of $1,000 for each seven days that the report is late.
Garment companies that fail to submit the report within 14 days may face possible suspension of the processing of any their labor-related documents, plus the monetary sanction.
