Senate OKs CUC to hire 19 alien workers

The Senate on Friday unanimously passed a House bill that would allow the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. to hire alien workers until 2010 to address the severe manpower shortage at CUC’s power plants in Lower Base.

All eight senators voted for the passage of the legislation amending the existing law that prevents CUC from hiring alien workers. With the action, CUC will hire 12 nonresident workers and renew the contracts of seven others who are currently employed at the utility agency.

During Friday’s session, Sen. Luis P. Crisostimo expressed opposition to the legislation, noting, among other things, that the power plants are not worth fixing or maintaining anymore because “they are junk.”

Sen. Felix T. Mendiola suggested inserting an amendment in the legislation to ensure that there will be a training program for locals.

Senate President Pete P. Reyes told Saipan Tribune yesterday that he was able to convince Crisostimo and Mendiola to support the legislation without any amendment.

Reyes said majority of the senators have gone down to CUC to see the problems.

“And the problem is, it has reached a critical situation and the people do not deserve to continue the power outages if we don’t have employees,” he pointed out.

The Senate president said if the two power engines that are currently working break down, then the entire island would go dark.

“To avoid that, as much as we are very pro-local hire, we went ahead and approved [the bill] based on what we saw at the power plants,” Reyes said.

Sen. Maria Frica Pangelinan said they all supported the need to allow CUC to hire foreign workers due to the critical conditions of the power engines.

Pangelinan said the power engines require constant monitoring, which the current employees can no longer keep up.

Last Monday, the House unanimously approved the legislation, which was introduced by Vice Speaker Joseph P. Deleon Guerrero. With the Senate’s approval, the bill now goes to Gov. Benigno R. Fitial.

On Friday, Fitial urged the Legislature to support an amendment of the law to allow the hiring of alien workers at CUC.

The Governor’s Strategic Economic Development Council had also adopted a resolution urging Fitial to exercise his powers to hire guest workers for CUC to ensure the consistent delivery of power, water, and wastewater services to residents.

Power plants officials have informed CUC executive director Antonio Muña that the removal of the 20 alien workers in September 2007 dramatically impacted the overall operation of the power generation division.