Labor turns over 350 unclaimed checks, tickets to Finance

The Department of Labor has turned over to the Finance Department 200 expired checks and 150 plane tickets owed to nonresident workers that have remained uncollected.

Finance Secretary Eloy Inos is now in charge of those unclaimed checks and tickets after Labor’s administrative hearing office forwarded the items to Finance last month, Labor public education and outreach director Rose Ada-Hocog told Saipan Tribune yesterday.

“The Secretary of Finance will be making a decision as to what steps they are going to take,” said Ada-Hocog, who, as then Labor administrative division director, gathered the unclaimed checks and tickets.

She said Finance and the Attorney General’s Office are working closely to determine what they are going to do with the items.

Since Saipan Tribune published the news about the unclaimed checks and tickets in January 2008, Ada-Hocog said that only one person went to Labor’s administrative hearing office to verify if he has a check. She said they referred the person to Finance.

The public education and outreach director advised workers who believe they have unclaimed checks or tickets to submit a request in writing to Finance.

In the request, the workers should explain that they just want to know if their names are on the list and state how much they are owed.

Ada-Hocog, however, stressed that even if the names of the workers are on the list, the checks and tickets are really outdated or expired.

“I suggest they give time for the Secretary of Finance and our legal team who are trying to work these things out and see how they could get the checks either reissued or whatever decision they will come up with,” she said.

Labor earlier disclosed that the total amount of these checks and tickets is over $100,000.

The checks have different amounts, with the smallest at $4.25, while many are in the thousands of dollars.

Most of the checks and tickets were issued to Chinese garment workers. These items were previously in possession of the Labor Enforcement Section before they were transferred to the administrative hearing office when the Labor Collections Unit was created in the latter part of 2006.

Some of the checks and tickets were issued in 1992 and the latest were made in 2007. Some of the issuing companies have already closed.