New system for transfer causes crowding at Labor

Employers and alien workers seeking for transfer relief crowded the Department of Labor’s Hearing Office yesterday morning.

Many workers, employers and employers’ agents patiently waited for three hours just to pick up either an administrative order allowing the immediate filing of the application to transfer or a notice of objection from some divisions at Labor.

The long line happened because people wrongly thought that they could only pick up the documents in the morning. In fact, they could also do so in the afternoon.

At 2pm yesterday, there was no more people trying to pick up documents, Saipan Tribune learned.

Labor administrative hearing officer Jerry Cody told Saipan Tribune that the long lines occur every Wednesday since they developed a system in response to the Public Law 15-108, the new labor reform law.

“The new law states that the hearing office will be involved in every transfer. The objection system is an interesting system which is catching problems early,” Cody said.

To avoid the long lines, the hearing officer advised people that they have all afternoon to pick up the documents because the hearing office tends to be busier in the morning.

Under the system, Cody said, people register with the Labor Employment Services and then they’re given a date to come back on Wednesday to receive the documents.

With respect to the notice, he said workers usually are given 14 days or two weeks from the Wednesday that they’re getting the notice.

Besides distributing the administrative transfer orders and notices of objection, the office also holds hearings every Wednesday on the objections that were served two weeks ago.

“For example, this morning we had eight hearings; this afternoon at 1pm there’s 10 hearings, so [there were] 18 hearings today,” Cody said.

On the objection issue, Cody explained that if an employer has not registered with Employment Services, they’ll get an objection from Employment Services.

He said there are between 15 to 20 objection hearings that take place every Wednesday.

“What’s really important is the employer is actually advised that they can come in and resolve the objections. They don’t have to wait for the hearings. The can come in, they can request for a meeting with the director,” Cody said.

For instance, he said, when the Labor director wants to see proof of solvency, they can meet with the director and give the director that information.

“If the director clears the objection and signs off on it, then the hearing office will immediately issue an order granting the petition even before the hearing date,” he added.

At first, they used to tell people to show up at 3pm and they had a tremendous crowd showing up.

“We changed the notice to tell the people that they can show up 10am to 12pm or 1pm to 4pm. Particularly today, a lot of people today showed up at the same time, but they have actually six hours,” he said.