{"id":233430,"date":"2016-08-02T06:00:29","date_gmt":"2016-08-01T20:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=233430"},"modified":"2016-08-02T06:00:29","modified_gmt":"2016-08-01T20:00:29","slug":"cuc-projects-contractor-telling-cw-1-workers-leave-2019-horrible-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/cuc-projects-contractor-telling-cw-1-workers-leave-2019-horrible-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"CUC projects contractor: Telling CW-1 workers to leave by 2019 \u2018horrible thing\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
Tano Group\u2019s Robert Bracken speaks during the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.\u2019s pipeline and Tank 102 replacement projects at CUC Power Plant in Lower Base on Friday afternoon. (Ferdie De La Torre)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A contractor for many Commonwealth Utilities Corp. projects has stated that without CW-1 workers they could not make projects in the CNMI and that telling them to leave by 2019 is \u201ca horrible thing.\u201d <\/p>\n

Tano Group\u2019s Robert Bracken in an interview said they could not be able to do projects with CUC and other agencies in the CNMI without the CW-1 workers. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat is our skilled labor force. Those are the welders, those are the feeders, those are the guys that know how to work\u2026\u201d Bracken said.<\/p>\n

In his remarks at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for CUC pipeline and Tank 102 replacement projects on Friday, Bracken expressed his strong support to CUC\u2019s efforts to keep its CW-1 workers.<\/p>\n

Bracken said he was talking earlier with CUC counsel James Sirok about CUC\u2019s foreign workers workforce.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a shame to even think about losing some of our skilled workers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Bracken said their company and their foreign workers have been working with CUC for 20 years or over now.<\/p>\n

He noted that CUC has a great team and has such a really good workforce.<\/p>\n

\u201c2019, guys show is over. You can\u2019t stay anymore. For me, that\u2019s a horrible thing,\u201d Bracken said, referring to the CW-1 program that is scheduled to end on Dec. 31, 2019.<\/p>\n

He said he is hoping that \u201cwe can give something\u201d to allow these CW-1 workers to stay in the CNMI and be productive.<\/p>\n

In an interview, Bracken disclosed that in the pipeline and Tank 102 projects, their company\u2019s 23 active CW-1 workers and an average of 22 locals were involved.<\/p>\n

Bracken said it took them six months to build the tank and more than six months to work with the pipeline project.<\/p>\n

Tano Group is the subcontractor for the pipeline project and the general contractor for the Tank 102.<\/p>\n

Bracken said their CW-1 workers are all from the Philippines, who have been working for the company for probably an average of 18 years and some of them for more than 20 years. <\/p>\n

He said all of their CW-1 workers will be affected come 2019 in one way or another. <\/p>\n

This year, Bracken said, they have been fortunate to not have issues with their petitions for CW-1 permits.<\/p>\n

He said they followed the suggestions and applied six months prior.<\/p>\n

Bracken said among of their CW-1 workers are project engineers.<\/p>\n

For Tano Group, Bracken said, they do business regionally in the Pacific so their home base is Saipan.<\/p>\n

He said they chose Saipan as their home base because of the immigration rules and regulations that preceded the CW-1 program, or the federal taking over CNM immigration.<\/p>\n

Bracken said the guest workers program back then would allow their workers easy travel throughout Micronesia. <\/p>\n

He said Tano Group has done projects in Pohnpei, Chuuk, Palau, or wherever Mobil Oil has a facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome 2019 we hope that something happens. It doesn\u2019t look good right now,\u201d Bracken pointed out. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A contractor for many Commonwealth Utilities Corp. projects has stated that without CW-1 workers they…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":233445,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,49,6550,5706],"class_list":["post-233430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-cuc","tag-robert-bracken","tag-tano-group"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233430","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}