{"id":254055,"date":"2017-06-09T06:00:36","date_gmt":"2017-06-08T20:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=254055"},"modified":"2017-06-09T06:00:36","modified_gmt":"2017-06-08T20:00:36","slug":"kilili-wants-bad-actors-blocked-cw-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/kilili-wants-bad-actors-blocked-cw-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Kilili wants \u2018bad actors\u2019 blocked from CW program"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, D.C.<\/strong>\u2014Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) wants the Department of Homeland Security to make companies that violate employment laws ineligible to participate in the foreign worker program, more commonly known in the Commonwealth as the CW-1 program.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompanies that do not pay their workers what they are owed, companies that ignore federal safety standards in the workplace, should not have the privilege of using the CW program,\u201d Sablan said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have too many legitimate businesses\u2014and even public institutions like the hospital\u2014that still need foreign workers and find it increasingly difficult to get CW permits. <\/p>\n

\u201cLegitimate local businesses should not have to compete with the \u2018bad actors,\u2019 who break the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sablan has already communicated his position to Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelley. And this week Sablan followed up by transmitting the citations and notifications of penalties just issued by the Occupation Safety and Health Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor against MCC International Saipan Ltd., Nanjing BeiLiDa New Materials System Engineering Co., and Gold Mantis Construction Decoration, Saipan LLC. <\/p>\n

OSHA proposed penalties of $193,750 against the three casino construction companies for workplace safety violations.<\/p>\n

OSHA investigation of a construction worker\u2019s death on the casino site is still ongoing.<\/p>\n

Both MCC and Gold Mantis have also run afoul of federal wage and hour law for not paying workers. And both companies have had to pay large settlements to workers for back wages.<\/p>\n

\u201cFederal regulations on the CW permit system are very clear,\u201d Sablan said. \u201cTo be eligible to apply for a permit a business must comply with all federal\u2014and Commonwealth\u2014requirements relating to employment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis includes nondiscrimination, occupational safety, and minimum wage requirements.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe CNMI government has already expressed its intention to collaborate with the U.S. Labor Department, cracking down on employers. Reporting employers who break Commonwealth employment laws and regulations to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is another way to show that the Marianas will not tolerate worker abuse, as would Marianas legislation blacklisting employers who flout the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sablan returned to Washington, D.C. on Monday for a four-week stretch of legislative activity in Congress. High on his agenda is work on a long-term plan to ensure that the Marianas economy has sufficient labor to continue to develop and that the number of U.S. workers relative to foreign workers keeps getting better.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is one more reason to clean out anyone who cannot follow the rules,\u201d said Sablan. \u201cMy work in Washington, [D.C.] is made all the more difficult, when the daily news is filled with pictures of worker protests and reports of death and injury on the job.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy showing that the Marianas has zero tolerance for companies that do not respect the law we increase our ability to craft a new labor policy that will help us keep our economy growing.\u201d (PR)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, D.C.\u2014Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) wants the Department of Homeland Security to make…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[256,118,1699,1589],"class_list":["post-254055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-casino","tag-cw","tag-homeland-security","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254055","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\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}