Massage firm barred from hiring aliens

A massage company was permanently disqualified from employing nonresident workers for breaching its settlement agreement with four former workers in a federal labor case.

Under the Dec. 22, 2004 settlement agreement, Walvo Enterprises Corp. was supposed to pay the workers a total of $10,000, in installments of $1,000 due every 15th of the month.

The company, which operates Hello Health Massage in Garapan, made payments of $1,000 in January 2005 and $500 in February 2005, but failed to make subsequent payments.

As of May 16, 2005, $3,500 remains unpaid and overdue.

At the hearing, Walvo vice president Thomas Cheung testified that the massage firm had not paid the settlement because it lacks the finances to do so. Cheung explained that Walvo’s revenues declined due to a reduction of staff—now down to two masseuses—and the street construction in Garapan in front of the business, which caused in a decline in the number of Walvo’s customers.

In an administrative order issued yesterday, Labor hearing officer Jerry Cody said Walvo was permanently barred from hiring new nonresidents in the CNMI “for its failure in good faith to comply with the terms of the settlement agreement.”

Cody ordered Walvo to pay the complainants the overdue amount of $3,500 within seven days and a sanction of $3,500 within 30 days.

Walvo was also given seven days to reimburse one of the workers, who had returned to her country of origin, for her repatriation expenses.

Further, Cody ordered the company to pay the $5,000 balance of the settlement agreement in installments, on or before the dates indicated in the settlement agreement.

“The hearing officer finds that it would be a waste of time and resources to require complainants to move separately for judgment every month that the remaining payments are missed,” Cody noted.

Therefore, he ordered that the entire unpaid balance of the settlement agreement become immediately due without further hearing, if Walvo misses a single future payment.

The settlement agreement stemmed from a complaint filed by workers Zhou Ping Xian, Xu Xiao Ping, Shi Fan, and Wu Shu Zhen in the U.S. District Court on Sept. 17, 2004.

The complainants accused Walvo of violating the Fair Labor Standards Act and the CNMI Minimum Wage and Hour Act. The parties settled the federal case in mediation.