Even restaurant food and pastries that the community has come to love may not taste the same again, and every other business from major hotels to lowly barber shops and manpower agencies supplying caregivers said they will either downsize or shut down when the transitional program that allows the CNMI access to some 10,000 skilled and professional foreign workers comes to an end on Dec. 31, 2014. <\/p>\n
As of last night, there\u2019s no decision yet from U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez whether to grant a five-year extension of the Commonwealth-only worker, or CW, program.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be a disaster,\u201d Herman\u2019s Modern Bakery general manager Juan \u201cPan\u201d T. Guerrero told Saipan Tribune yesterday. \u201cWe\u2019ve always maintained a certain quality of baking. If we lose our valued foreign workers, even the delicious buns we make for McDonald\u2019s could taste different.\u201d<\/p>\n
The three head chefs at J\u2019s Restaurants, also a food institution in the CNMI like Herman\u2019s Modern Bakery, are all holders of CW permits that are valid only until Dec. 31, unless the program is extended.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would have to downsize, instead of a 24-hour operation. It would have a tremendous impact on us. J\u2019s Restaurant will still be open but it\u2019s not going to be the same,\u201d Juan S. Tenorio, president of Jet Holdings, which operates the two J\u2019s Restaurant branches, separately said.<\/p>\n
Diamond Auto Parts, one of the major retailers of automotive parts on island, is also sure to take a hit if it loses access to its long-term foreign workers whom the business has relied on for 21 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe the business won\u2019t close but sales could further weaken. It\u2019s already been getting weak, it\u2019s going to get worse,\u201d said general manager Jun Lambon.<\/p>\n
The 426-room Hafa Adai Beach Hotel in Garapan, one of the major hotels in the CNMI, sees a \u201cdifficult\u201d future ahead if it loses access to about 40 percent of its employees if the CW program ends in 2014.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not going to shut down our operations but it will be difficult for us. We continue to discuss plans to maintain our operations,\u201d said Hafa Adai Beach Hotel front office manager Takatoshi Namima, on behalf of general manager Akira Takaoka.<\/p>\n
The Saipan Chamber of Commerce, the largest business organization in the CNMI, as well as the Hotel Association of the Northern Mariana Islands, has spoken of economic disaster should the tourism-based economy loses foreign workers that make up majority of private sector personnel for their specialized skills and level of expertise in their field, be it engineering, architecture, nursing, teaching, accounting, journalism, carpentry, farming, fishing, plumbing, or care-giving.<\/p>\n
Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) said last night that while the U.S. Labor secretary does not have to issue a decision until the end of June 2014, he\u2014like many others throughout the community\u2014wants this decision \u201csooner rather than later.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I can say is that the Secretary has to make a complex and difficult decision. I think an extension is best for our economy. But Department of Labor officials are also hearing other voices in the Marianas saying they want all foreign workers to be gone by the end of this year even if that is detrimental to our economy and that has negative impact on local government revenues,\u201d Sablan told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n
He said his office continues to work with officials of the U.S. Department of Labor on the CW program.<\/p>\n
Sablan and Gov. Eloy S. Inos asked for a five-year extension of the CW program, while at the same time working to ensure more U.S. workers get training to be able to eventually fill most private sector positions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe decision to extend or to not extend the transition period is for Secretary Perez to make. And we will continue to urge him to make it sooner rather than later,\u201d the delegate added.<\/p>\n
A beauty and barbershop in Garapan said yesterday they are more than likely to shut down their business if they lose their all-around beauticians, all of whom are foreign workers.<\/p>\n
[B]Balancing act[\/B]<\/p>\n
Herman\u2019s Modern Bakery\u2019s Guerrero said that about 60 of their estimated 100 employees are foreign workers.<\/p>\n
He said they are considering applying for H visas for at least their highly valuable bakers to ensure there is no disruption of production if the CW program expires this year, and to maintain the high-quality products Herman\u2019s Modern Bakery has been known for.<\/p>\n
Guerrero said their company has long been training U.S. workers or residents, including Saipan Southern High School students, hoping that they too will become valuable company assets later on.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve done so many training of U.S. workers but the problem is, they never complete the training. It\u2019s been a struggle for us to train and maintain these workers. At one time, we tried to replace 30 with local workers. In one month, only one remained. We lost 10 locals in one week alone. They voluntarily decided to not be employed, not because there\u2019s no job available to them,\u201d Guerrero added.<\/p>\n
Herman\u2019s Modern Bakery has been supplying products to DFS Galleria and McDonald\u2019s. Should the bakery loses its expert bakers, for example, Guerrero said the taste and quality may never be the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cBaking is a hard work and requires creativity and expertise. In baking, it\u2019s either you have it or you don\u2019t,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Guerrero said both the Public School System and Northern Marianas College \u201chave to step up\u201d in preparing students to become employable individuals.<\/p>\n
\u201cEmployers pay $150 for every foreign worker we hire. We don\u2019t see the results of that yet,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
While J\u2019s Restaurant could survive, albeit with difficulty, Jet Holdings\u2019 Tenorio said he is most worried about hotels\u2019 operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sympathize with hotels who would have difficulty replacing foreign workers that they have come to rely on. And I believe the 5,000 unemployed residents that the CNMI Labor secretary has been saying is too high. She\u2019s probably counting the retirees, too,\u201d Tenorio said.<\/p>\n
He added that the proposed $7.25 CNMI minimum wage would spell more difficulty for business when he believes that the current $5.55 an hour \u201cis already comparable to the $7.25 an hour in the U.S. because in the CNMI, we don\u2019t pay property tax, we don\u2019t pay state tax, and we have a rebate system.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jet Holdings has 59 employees right now, and 21 of them are U.S. citizens or green card holders.<\/p>\n
Barbecue stands, construction companies, automotive repair shops and every other small to large companies share the same uncertainty whether they would still have access to foreign workers beyond 2014.<\/p>\n
The government and private sector employers, even if they have been stepping up training and employing as many U.S. workers as possible, concede that the CNMI needs more time to fill most private sector jobs with U.S. workers.<\/p>\n
CNMI Labor secretary Edith DeLeon Guerrero said one of the goals is to increase the traffic of job seekers involving U.S. workers and job referrals in preparation for the end of the CW transition period. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Even restaurant food and pastries that the community has come to love may not taste the same again, and every other business from major hotels to lowly barber shops and manpower agencies supplying caregivers said they will either downsize or shut down when the transitional program that allows the CNMI access to some 10,000 skilled and professional foreign workers comes to an end on Dec. 31, 2014. <\/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-175492","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\/175492","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=175492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}