Firm agrees to take on ex-Sako workers

Jobless days may be over for many workers who were displaced by the now defunct garment firm Sako Corp.

The Department of Labor disclosed that it has reached an agreement with another garment firm to hire all of the former Sako sewers who remain on-island. Other prospective employers have also indicated their interest to hire former Sako workers.

Labor hearing officer Maya B. Kara also issued yesterday a supplemental order extending the transfer period for Sako’s nonresident workers by 45 days from Sept. 23 to Nov. 7.

The name of the garment firm that agreed to hire former Sako employees was undisclosed at press time. In Kara’s order, however, she noted that that garment factory had initially wanted to hire more than 100 workers from abroad.

Kara said the department and the garment factory had entered into negotiations on Sept. 16 for the company to first tap into the local pool of garment workers. She said the department and the garment factory reached an agreement on Sept. 23, the day when the transfer period for the former Sako workers was to end.

“The garment factory agreed to make a good faith effort to hire all of the Sako sewers that are still on-island so long as they are eligible to enter into one-year employment contracts,” Kara said.

“The department has likewise received additional requests from other prospective employers to hire former Sako workers,” she added.

Kara issued the supplemental order to allow former Sako workers to transfer to the garment factory or any other prospective employer until Nov. 7. She stressed, though, that the new 45-day extension of the transfer period would be final. Former Sako workers who could not provide proof of a transfer application to a new employer after the new deadline would become deportable.

In an Aug. 9 administrative order, Kara had granted the workers transfer relief until Sept. 23. She had also sanctioned Sako to pay a total of $185,000—or $500 for each of its 371 workers—for abandoning its workers and committing several labor law violations.

The Labor Department earlier found Sako to have committed the following violations: failure to fully compensate the workers in a timely manner; failure to timely notify the employees of its reduction in force; failure to give timely notice of termination for cause; and illegal employment of a worker named Jun Young Ham.

The department also permanently barred Sako officers, including president Kyun Hee Kun and vice president Min Hyung Ki, from employing or utilizing nonresident workers in the CNMI. It also disqualified the company from hiring the officers as nonresident workers.

The office of Labor Director Dean Tenorio represented some 486 workers formerly employed by Sako in the administrative proceedings. The department’s acting spokesman, Jesse Atoigue, said some of the workers have transferred to other employers or have gone back to their home countries. It remained unclear as to how many of Sako’s displaced workers remain jobless in the CNMI.

Kara said the transfer period’s extension would assist the CNMI’s garment factories that are in need of additional employees by making available to them trained garment workers.

“It will also assist former Sako employees who lost their jobs through no fault of their own by affording them one last opportunity to find a one-year-contract employment,” Kara said.

Sako ceased its local business operations on March 10, 2005. Several parties have been running after Sako over unpaid debts and obligations. The company had sold some of its equipment abroad after closing down on Saipan.

Sako’s creditors include the Finance Department, which had been running after it for over $1.6 million in unpaid taxes; Vicente SN. Babauta, the company’s former landlord; and the law firm of O’Connor Berman Dotts and Banes.

Saipan’s U.S. District Court had also declared Sako liable in the amount of over $1 million, in connection with a lawsuit brought to court by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of some 65 workers.