Previous Story
Attao: It’s not just an added expense
The author of a bill that would require employers to obtain a Department of Labor ID for foreign workers belied claims that it would just be an additional expense for employers. Rather, it will provide controlled CW-1 slot assignments in the future, said Rep. Blas Jonathan “BJ” Attao (Ind-Saipan).
The bill, which passed the House of Representatives last Thursday, now heads to the Senate.
HB 20-68 HD1 seeks to require employers to obtain CNMI Department of Labor-issued identification cards for each of their nonresident workers at a cost of $50 each.
Attao explained that even if the bill is passed by the CNMI government, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security must first “give the Commonwealth government the green light” prior to implementation. This means that even if the bill becomes law, it cannot be implemented without the approval of DHS.
Attao said the main purpose of the bill was to allow for a type of prioritization when it comes to the issuing of CW slots for nonresidents. Citing the cases of Commonwealth Health Center nurses who are about to leave temporarily due to CW-1 complications, Attao wishes to set aside a number of slots for the more important jobs, such as nurses.
“We are fighting [for] CWs against every other entity here,” said Attao. “If we knew where these [CW slots] were actually going to, we could protect our healthcare. Right now, we are at zero knowledge of everything. We are compromising our healthcare.”
Attao added that with the ID, the CNMI government could possibly save money for the prioritization of healthcare professionals.
“If we had the statistics we could actually [coordinate] with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services,” he said.
The additional $50 would be going into what is called the non-immigrant worker identification fund. The bill stated that 70 percent of the fees generated would go to the CNMI Department of Labor for the enforcement of laws pertaining to non-immigrant workers and the maintenance of records and files of all non-immigrant workers, while the remaining 30 percent would go the Department of Commerce’s Central Statistics Division.
HB 20-68 HD1 now heads to the Senate for action.
