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Labor secretary: Posting JVAs in newspapers, radios not sufficient
Department of Labor Secretary Edith DeLeon Guerrero said yesterday that it is not enough for employers who are recruiting foreign workers to post the job vacancy announcement in the newspapers or radios, as they are required under the law to post such announcement on Labor’s website.
In response to Saipan Tribune’s inquiry about the job vacancy announcement regulations, DeLeon Guerrero said she keeps hearing from employers that according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services posting JVAs is sufficient.
DeLeon Guerrero said the USCIS website specifically states that employers must follow state employment and federal laws.
The Labor secretary pointed out that the USCIS’ particular general language targets what is the local state law, which one of them is the requirement of posting of JVA on the state’s Labor website if employers are recruiting foreign workers.
“It is clear. That is the law,” she said, citing that Labor’s employment rules and regulations requires an employer who intends to employ a foreign national worker, or nonimmigrant, transitional worker, or non-immigrant alien on a full-time basis must post a JVA on Labor’s website.
DeLeon Guerrero said she has been doing a lot of outreach program about the JVA issue in the newspapers and also have it posted on Labor website.
She said if Labor discovers the violation, then there is process fee that the employers go through such as an agency compliance case.
DeLeon Guerrero said the reality is employers need to follow the law because they can’t go wrong with it.
“The law has been in the book for so long. We cannot continue to make statement like that we are clueless, we don’t know that it’s there,” she said.
DeLeon Guerrero said it’s just that Labor never really enforced the law before, and that now that she is the secretary for Labor going three years, this is what it is that they are encouraging people and employers to make sure that they follow the law.
“If they do then it’s only good for them,” she said.
