HANMI seeks stay on benefits law

The Hotel Association of Northern Mariana Islands has asked the legislature to temporarily postpone the implementation of “The Resident Workers Fair Compensation Act” until amendments are made or clarified through regulations.

“We agree with compensating local workers fairly and we understand the law, but we have difficulties implementing it because it’s very vague — without rules and regulations,” said Ron Sablan, president of HANMI.

HANMI officers and board members of the Saipan Chamber of Commerce met with the Senate President Paul Manglona, House Speaker Diego T. Benavente and Rep. Oscar Babauta last week to discuss the problems in connection with its implementation.

“It’s so ambiguous, we can expect a whole series of lawsuits when businesses have difficulties complying. We’d rather work with our leaders to get out list of questions resolved before the trouble begins,” said Sablan.

After the meeting, Sablan said there seemed to be a consensus among the group that changes should be made to the law. “I’m encouraged that the President and the Speaker were willing to listed and to try understand our concerns from a business perspective,” said Sablan. He said the

The law, which was signed by Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio last month provided that local residents earning less than an hourly wage of $5.15 to receive all benefits extended to foreign workers as mandated by existing laws.

Public Law 11-74 states that locals whose wages are still below the prevailing minimum level in the United States are entitled to receive in-kind or the cash equivalent of the full benefits such as subsidized food, housing, local transportation, health insurance and medical care.

But Sablan noted that there were no formulas attached to the law specifying how to calculate the value of which benefits, for which job categories, over which period of time. “This law really opens up a can of worms because it was so briefly worded. In these economic times, we really can’t afford to create further instability,” he said.

Founded in 1983, the hotel association has 20 leading hotels as its members, representing 3,070 rooms or over 69 percent of all hotel rooms in the CNMI and employing 2,343 people, of which 35 percent are local workers.