Stop illegal recruitment scams

By JIM BENEDETTO

I am writing to comment on recent news stories concerning the exploitation of foreign workers by illegal recruiting schemes. It is indeed true that some of the factories that have closed in the past 18 months continued to hire and bring workers to Saipan long after they had made the decision to cease their business activities here. This is the situation that Tim Bellas, executive director of the Garment Oversight Board, was speaking to recently, and he has it exactly right.

We have long suspected that a portion of the fees charged by recruiters in China were being kicked back to the factories here in Saipan. If true, it would explain why recruitment of off-island workers was so popular: off-island workers, and the thousands of dollars they paid to get jobs, allowed marginally profitable factories to stay afloat, albeit on the backs of their worker-victims. We also know that some of the agencies approved by the Chinese government to recruit workers for jobs in Saipan are affiliated with garment factories that operate here on Saipan. This setup is a powerful one-two punch for the factories. They get paid a portion of the recruiting fee for each worker, who is reluctant to complain about labor violations because of the recruiting debt hanging over his head.

With all due respect to my friend Richard Pierce, his letter (‘Exploitation’ of guest workers, Saipan Tribune, May 30, 2006) does not accurately recount the events of our meeting in the Attorney General’s Office. We were indeed there to discuss how to handle garment factory closures, and how best to provide services to displaced workers. But I do not recall anyone discussing recruiting fees as a reason for not going home. Tim Bellas mentioned that the GOB had a compensation fund to reimburse workers for their recruitment fees if they worked here less than two years, but I do not recall anyone from CEDA stating that workers could get their recruitment fees refunded. I spoke with Mr. Shang (not “Shen”) of CEDA this morning, and he also does not recall stating that workers’ recruiting fees could be forgiven or refunded if they were laid off or terminated early. Nor do I recall any person opining that recruitment fees were a motivation for filing frivolous complaints. I do not believe that to be true, and would certainly have taken exception if anyone had expressed that sentiment.

It is true that the agreements between CEDA, on behalf of the Chinese government, and the Commonwealth, are of great benefit to the Commonwealth and Chinese workers. The benefit to the CNMI is in the screening and certification provided by CEDA and its approved recruiters. If workers are going to cross international borders to work, there need to be checks and balances in both countries. The agreements with CEDA provide such checks and balances for the vast majority of workers coming from China. The agreements are good for the workers because they provide a cap on the fees that can legally be charged by the approved recruiters (about $600), and require the recruiters to intercede on behalf of the worker in some disputes with the employer.

Unfortunately, exploiting workers by charging them exorbitant recruiting fees for nonexistent jobs has expanded beyond the garment industry. Many of the workers who come to the Federal Ombudsman’s Office to complain about illegal recruitment are being recruited as farmers, commercial cleaners, housekeepers, waitresses, construction workers, even accountants. The vast majority of our complainants have paid a Chinese “snakehead” (or illegal recruiter) with connections to a business owner on Saipan who obtains Authorization for Entry letters, contracts and work permits for them. When they arrive here, the employer disclaims any knowledge of the existence of the contract, and the worker is left to fend for himself.

We have about 55 open cases on our books that have been referred to the Department of Labor and the Attorney General’s Office, and have been advised the cases are being investigated. These scams have become enough of a problem to Labor that it has recently promulgated regulations prohibiting “sponsorships” and strengthening the existing law against charging workers for jobs. The Department of Labor’s Administrative Hearing Office also takes a dim view of these scams, and routinely refuses to allow the employer to settle the case at mediation, instead referring the majority of such cases for Departmental investigation. If the investigation reveals the worker has been the victim of a scam, the NMI employer should be prosecuted and jailed, and the worker should be given restitution and an opportunity to work here. If the investigation reveals the worker understood he would not be given a job by his “employer,” and was a willing participant in a sponsorship, he will be deported and forever banned from working in the CNMI, and the employer may be permanently barred from using nonresident workers.

One thing is abundantly clear: if we want to stop these abuses, we will have to allow the Department of Labor to keep enough of the money it generates with nonresident worker applications and renewals—about $9 million per year—to hire enough investigators and hearing officers to do the job. If we do not allocate sufficient resources to Labor, then we are allowing these illegal recruitment scams to proliferate, and we deserve all the negative publicity we get in the future.

(Jim Benedetto is the Federal Ombudsman.)