Compensation law eases plight of Bangladeshis •Stranded workers set for repatriation to Bangladesh after payment of $3,000

Fifteen Bangladeshi nationals will be repatriated next week under a recently implemented law that allows the government to provide up to $3,000 in compensation to nonresident workers awaiting awarded monetary damages.

They will be the first batch of displaced workers to receive financial assistance from the CNMI set forth in Public Law 11-66 which was signed last month in another attempt to deal with growing number of labor cases on the island and stave off federal takeover of local labor and immigration.

According to Labor and Immigration Sec. Mark Zachares, the 15 Bangladeshi workers, who were employed as security guards and abandoned by their employers, would receive money equivalent to three-month salary and a one-way plane ticket back to their country.

“They just wanted to recover the bonding money that’s owed to them,” he told in an interview yesterday, “and we are going to pay them.”

Zachares, however, did not provide details on the amount of assistance each worker would get before their departure from Saipan scheduled in about a week.

The law, passed on the heels of the February visit of US. Rep. Don Young, has authorized the department to expend money from the Deportation Fund to pay out back wages of foreign workers equivalent to three months of their salary and a one-way plane ticket to their country of origin.

The assistance will cover unemployed nonresident workers who are holding administrative awards for unpaid back wages and other related damages.

Meanwhile, a group of Chinese workers staged a sit-in protest yesterday outside the Office of the Governor in Capitol Hill, demanding payment of back wages.

The nine workers, who were employed by a construction firm on Tinian, said an administrative order issued by DOLI to pay out their claims remained unenforced despite a deadline of February 10, 1999.

“We’ll go back to China as soon as we receive our money,” they said in a letter addressed to Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio.

The local chief executive talked briefly with the workers, telling them they would be assisted by his government. He had also instructed Zachares to look into their case.

“We are trying to find a way that we could help them out,” Tenorio told reporters. “We are trying our best,” he said, adding they could receive compensation from the government as they are also covered by PL 11-66.

Zachares likewise urged the Chinese nationals, through an interpreter, to apply at the department so they can process their papers.

“We have that law in place and they could take advantage of it,” he said.

The island government is hoping the law would help quell mounting pressure from the White House to strip CNMI powers over its labor and immigration standards — issues which have strained bilateral relations in recent years.