The Department of Labor has issued a warning against a company and its president for filing an application to hire a nonresident worker despite numerous pending labor cases and a determination that they owe tens of thousands in back wages to more than 40 employees.<\/p>\n
Labor administrative hearing officer Jerry Cody warned Sun Mei Corp. and its president, Sun Qiao Lan, that they should refrain from filing transfer applications to hire alien workers until a 2004 compliance agency case against them is resolved by an administrative order.<\/p>\n
Cody said a further ban on hiring might be imposed at the conclusion of the agency case.<\/p>\n
\u201cFailure to comply with this instruction in the future may result in monetary sanctions against these parties,\u201d the hearing officer said.<\/p>\n
Cody issued such warning in affirming the Labor director\u2019s decision to deny the permit renewal application filed by Sun Mei Corp. for Fang Bai, an alien worker.<\/p>\n
Cody, however, granted Bai\u2019s request for transfer and gave her 45 days to find a new employer.<\/p>\n
Labor records show that on June 6, 2005, Sun Mei Corp. filed a transfer application to hire Bai under a one-year nonresident work permit.<\/p>\n
On March 28, 2006, Labor denied the application on the grounds that Sun Mei Corp. failed to comply with back wages and salaries related to a 2005 Labor denial case. Sun Mei Corp. and its president appealed.<\/p>\n
In that 2005 case, hearing officer Maya Kara noted that more than five cases had been filed against Sun Mei Corp. involving unpaid wages.<\/p>\n
Additionally, two cases involved wrongful termination, and others involve a variety of unlawful activities such as abandonment, failure to provide work and illegal recruiting fees. These cases currently remain pending in the Division\u2019s Investigation Section.<\/p>\n
In his order, Cody noted that Labor is currently litigating a 2004 compliance agency case against Sun Mei Corp., which concerns the nonpayment of thousands of dollars in wages owed to company employees, as well as other alleged violations of law.<\/p>\n
Cody said that Labor has determined that Sun Mei Corp. owes tens of thousands in back wages to more than 40 employees.<\/p>\n
He said Labor recommended that the company should not be allowed to hire additional workers until the compliance agency case is resolved.<\/p>\n
At the present hearing, Sun Mei Corp.\u2019s president Sun admitted that the company owes many thousands of dollars to its workers.<\/p>\n
Sun stated that the company does not contest the current denial; rather, it supports this worker\u2019s request for transfer relief.<\/p>\n
Miss Sun stated that the company does not object to being barred from hiring new workers until the cases are resolved.<\/p>\n
Bai also does not contest the denial but asks to be allowed to transfer to a new employer.<\/p>\n
Cody said this evidence establishes that the denial of Sun Mei Corp.\u2019s application was justified and uncontested, and therefore should be affirmed.<\/p>\n
\u201cBased on the evidence presented and in view of the general transfer polices that allow for transfer where the worker is not at fault, I hold that Miss Bai should be granted transfer relief,\u201d Cody said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Department of Labor has issued a warning against a company and its president for filing an application to hire a nonresident worker despite numerous pending labor cases and a determination that they owe tens of thousands in back wages to more than 40 employees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100773\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}