Foreign workers already have passports, work visas, and receipts. This time, a bill proposes a new identification card for foreign workers, to be shouldered by employers at a cost of $50 each. That has got the business sector crying foul.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bill will just duplicate the business sector\u2019s federal responsibilities and expenses. There\u2019s got to be another way of doing it that doesn\u2019t require the business owners to carry the burden,\u201d said Saipan Chamber of Commerce president Velma Palacios.<\/p>\n
House Bill 20-68 would require Commonwealth-only workers, or CW-1 workers, to be registered with the CNMI Department of Labor and for all employers to get identification cards that cost $50 each for their foreign workers. The bill passed during a House hearing held last Thursday.<\/p>\n
The bill, authored by Rep. Blas Jonathan T. Attao (Ind-Saipan) notes, \u201cThis system will help the CNMI get a hold of the numbers of the CW-1 issued by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration System. The bill sets a procedure that when a CW-1 is issued by USCIS, all non-immigrant workers must then register in the CNMI Department of Labor.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Department of Labor will then record and maintain the files and documentation of all non-immigrant workers and issue a non-immigrant worker\u2019s identification card.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attao believes that the bill is ripe for passage. \u201cOur situation is getting worse. A lot of the problems that we face now in terms of manpower is that we don\u2019t even know where the CW-1 numbers are going and the federal government is not passing that information down to us. If we had access, we wouldn\u2019t have the problem happening in the hospital right now where we are losing healthcare workers like our nurses.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bill will allow us to have access to the statistical data and we would actually know the exact numbers of how many people are being approved and for what positions,\u201d Attao added.<\/p>\n
The Chamber does not agree because it said this repeats a process that is already established and followed by business owners in terms of employee documentation and the identification card is costly especially for businesses that have several CW-1 hires.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe document our own employees. We go through and follow the rules of the CNMI Department of Labor and USCIS. We are hiring documented and approved workers. If the government wants the information, why are they imposing on the business sector to do the work for the government? We are diligent in managing our employees with proper documentation. We are already in a bad place to find enough workers and to follow all the rules that exists. It is very difficult,\u201d Palacios said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe CNMI Labor Department should be the one to keep the statistics because they require businesses to advertise on their website about job openings. They keep asking for this data and we keep providing them. We are not remiss in our responsibilities. \u2026This bill is redundant and costly for the business community,\u201d Palacios added.<\/p>\n
Attao also hopes that the bill will encourage business owners to hire more local workers. \u201cWe have a growing population of nurses from [the Northern Marianas College], workers with skills and training from [the Northern Marianas Trades Institute]. We can now slowly decrease the dependency on CW workers and I think people should also see this is where legislation is coming from.\u201d<\/p>\n
Palacios was quick to say that the business community has been doing that and is aware of the importance of hiring U.S. citizens first. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are going through this process because, again, the perception is we haven\u2019t been hiring U.S. citizens but we have. Businesses continue to do whatever it takes to locally hire. We have partnerships with NMTI, Latte Training [Academy], and conduct internal trainings. We hire foreign workers for jobs that require not only skills but years of experience in that field,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
A provision in the bill states that registration in the CNMI Department of Labor and acquisition of a non-immigrant worker\u2019s identification card is subject to the approval of the Department of Homeland Security-USCIS.<\/p>\n
As per procedure, the bill\u2019s next stop is at the Senate. The Senate hearing on the bill is yet to be scheduled.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not saying it shouldn\u2019t be done. We are just saying it should not be the business community\u2019s burden to pay more than it should,\u201d said Chamber executive director Jill Arenovski.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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