Wrong click on Labor website costs firm $300 fine, warning

A company administrative officer’s “wrong click” on the CNMI Department of Labor’s website has cost Winchell’s Donut House a $300 fine and a warning.

Labor administrative hearing officer Jerry Cody ordered Winchell’s Inc., owner of Winchell’s Donut House, to pay the $300 fine on or before June 12, 2014.

Cody warned the company that any failure to review and consider online job applicants or failure to post the required declaration (online response) in a timely manner may result in more severe sanctions.

Cody said that Winchell’s management admitted that it failed to correctly read the postings on Labor website and failed to consider those applicants who had responded on the website.

Cody said the administrative officer acknowledged his mistake in navigating Labor’s website.

Cody heard Labor’s compliance agency case against Winchell’s on April 7 and May 13, 2014. Winchell’s administrative officer, a consultant, and its counsel, Colin Thompson, appeared at the hearing.

In its determination, Labor’s Enforcement Section charged Winchell’s with violating Labor Regulation that requires an employer to file a “declaration” with Labor’s Citizen Job Placement Section within 14 days after publication of a job announcement on its website.

The “declaration” requires the employer to post a timely, short response on the website, explaining the action taken with respect to each applicant who posted a response to the job vacancy, and the reason(s) why that person was not hired for the position.

In December 2013, Winchell’s posted job announcements on Labor’s website for a store manager and three bakers.

As of March 14, 2014, Winchell’s had not posted any response to Labor or the online job applicants. Ultimately, the company renewed the contracts of CW-1 workers for all four positions.

Two U.S.-qualified job applicants responded online to the store manager posting and three responded to the baker position.

Winchell’s main business office in Guam arranges all hiring of personnel on Saipan.

The company’s administrative officer testified that he never realized that anyone had responded to the job announcements. He testified that when he looked at the online summary page and clicked “responses” in the right column of the page, no responses appeared on the screen. This led him to conclude that nobody had replied online to these job announcements.

In his order, Cody said the administrative officer was in error as while looking at the “summary page” he should have clicked on the job title.

Cody said if the officer had clicked on the job title and then clicked “responses” from that page, he would have seen two applicants listed for store manager and three applicants for baker.

In addition to the website, Winchell’s however, advertised the positions in the Saipan Tribune for about 10 days in December 2013. The company contacted all four applicants for the baker position and scheduled interviews. Three failed to appear, and the other applicant was found to be unqualified for the position.

At the end of the hearing, Labor’s Enforcement stated it would leave the decision on sanctions to Cody’s discretion.