OSHA lauds HANMI

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has commended hotels on the island for providing safe working and living conditions to their employees.

In a meeting with members of the Hotel Association of Northern Mariana Islands, Frank Strasheim, OSHA regional administrator, said the hotels have maintained a good reputation thus, it is unlikely that inspections will be conducted unless there is a complaint or an injury.

According to the OSHA official, hotels have done a good job in training their workers on safety requirements primarily because the nature of their job is focused on customer service. “We don’t find anything close to that in the other industries,” Mr. Strasheim said.

OSHA has stepped up its campaign during the tourism boom on the island which saw the influx of nonresident workers. During that time, Mr. Strasheim said he saw infrastructure problems such as inadequate drinking water, power, and roads.

“When you bring in guest workers, if there’s insufficient food, housing, medical facilities, that becomes a problem. So we’ve stepped up our efforts in Saipan because Congress required it. They decided that there was insufficient federal enforcement,” he said.

Staff houses or barracks will not be inspected unless there is a complaint or there is an ongoing construction which in this case, OSHA would have to inspect the contractor.

“Our jurisdiction on the labor barracks kicks in if you provide the housing when worker is under your control, but if they find their own housing and pay their own rent directly to the apartment building, they are not under OSHA jurisdiction,” Strasheim said.

Currently, there are approximately 500 staff houses on the island which makes the situation unique since this is not found in the U.S. mainland or Guam. Compared to the CNMI where there are more than 20,000 nonresident workers, there are only 827 foreign technical workers in Guam.

OSHA reminded the hotel executives the importance of providing clean and sufficient water supply. Aside from potable water, there must also be hot water for sanitation purposes.

“Our hotels have built a good reputation and we’d like to maintain that reputation so we want to make sure we’re fully aware of all OSHA requirements. We are a service-oriented industry that always needs to provide a safe environment for our employees and our guests,” said Ron Sablan, president of HANMI.

Some 30 representatives from various hotels which include general managers, middle management staff, engineers and human resources officers attended the HANMI-OSHA seminar.