Company fined for failing to produce docs on time

The CNMI Department of Labor fined in mid-January a company after it failed to produce required documents that the department demands on a quarterly basis.

The department issued a penalty of $2,000 against Xian Tang Sanchez, which does business as 24/7 Security Services. The penalty is the maximum amount imposed on businesses that fail to produce documents on time.

The $1,000 is to be paid within 30 days. The remaining $1,000 is suspended for two years, then extinguished if Sanchez commits no further violations within the period.

Regardless of whether a written request is submitted or not, DOL requires employers to submit documents—sometimes more than once a year—for recordkeeping at the department’s end.

The department sent a request to Sanchez last Sept. 26, asking for her Total Workforce Listing, her Workforce Plan, Employer’s Quarterly Withholding Tax for the last four quarters, payroll records for the last four quarters, business license, annual corporate report, a map of the business location, and more.

Her deadline was last Oct. 11, 2017.

DOL regulations usually require employers to submit their Total Workforce Listings quarterly and an updated workforce plan annually.

Sanchez was found unable to submit both to DOL even after several extensions.

A DOL message last Oct. 23 to a manager from the business, named Osman Gani, gave the company an extension of one day, requiring the business to submit the documents on Oct. 24, 2017.

On Oct. 27, 2017, Gani called DOL seeking another extension.

Come Nov. 17, 2017, the business has yet to produce the documents, forcing DOL to file a case with a hearing on Dec. 18, 2017.

On the day of the hearing, Sanchez was able to produce most of the requested documents but still lacked some. The business was able to complete DOL’s request only on Jan. 2, 2018.

Sanchez told DOL that she signed a power of attorney that enables Gani to manage and operate a security business under her ownership and name.

Gani testified at the hearing that he was unable to produce the documents as he was involved in a USDOL investigation. However, based on information obtained from the USDOL investigator involved in the case, he only met with Gane twice and only took copies of documents—not the original documents itself.

DOL presiding hearing officer Jerry Cody found that the employer’s delayed response to the request for documents for DOL “wasted departmental resources by requiring [DOL] Enforcement [and Compliance Section] to file the present case and attend a hearing to recover the documents.”

He noted that a case could have been avoided if the employer had acted responsibly and produced the documents on time.