Salas blasts new labor regs

The second highest official of the Department of Labor yesterday expressed dissatisfaction with the newly adopted rules and regulations for nonresident workers, saying they are “misfocused” and benefit only guest workers.

A member of the task force that formulated the regulations, Labor deputy secretary Andrew Salas said he stopped attending the group’s meetings because he didn’t believe in the philosophy of the task force and in many of the provisions in the labor regulations.

“The task force is misinformed; it is misfocused. I think it was a waste of my time,” Salas said in an interview.

He explained that instead of addressing the high unemployment rate among resident workers, the new labor regulations focus solely on ensuring that guest workers get jobs one after another.

Among the major changes implemented under the new regulations is the provision allowing nonresident workers to hold multiple jobs in the Commonwealth, upon the consent of their primary employer.

“The initial intent [of the law allowing the hiring of guest workers] was to help local businesses realize economic prosperity… so that health, education and living standards in the Commonwealth would improve. But Labor has shifted from that original intent. Now, the very intent is to give guest workers all rights and privileges of finding another job,” Salas said.

He added, “I understand importance of bringing in guest workers. I want to bring them in quicker than we are bringing them in right now. But I am also cognizant of the fact that I owe a lot of these jobs to my people. I’m not going to sit around in a task force [to discuss how to] give guest workers another job, while the 600 high school kids that are graduating in the Commonwealth cannot even find one job.”

Salas also reiterated his position on the abolition of employment transfer processes and the implementation of a policy requiring a guest worker to exit the Commonwealth after each contract termination or expiration, regardless if the employer plans to renew the contract of the worker or not.

Labor Department data, based on valid permits and pending applications as of March 2, 2004, showed that 2,655 of the 31,613 guest workers on island are hired on permit expiration transfer.

A total of 793 are employed on consensual transfer while 831 have been allowed to transfer by virtue of administrative orders.

Salas said that consensual transfers, in particular, are being abused by workers in their pursuit of better paying jobs.

The alien workers’ rights to transfers and temporary work have also resulted in scores of frivolous complaints being filed with the Labor Department, he said.