Labor issues order on a 5-year-old complaint

The Department of Labor has issued an order in a labor case that was filed five years ago by three security guards against their former employers.

In the order issued Wednesday last week, Labor hearing officer Jerry Cody found respondents Leonard C. Ramos, owner of the defunct Leonard Security Agency, and its agent, Perfecto C. Ramos, in violation of the Nonresident Workers Act.

Cody said the respondents committed the violations by collecting processing fees from Renato G. Cotin; by failing to pay for medical expenses and other legitimate expenses for Dominador P. Andres and Celso D. Agpawa; and by failing to provide employment contracts to all three.

The hearing officer permanently barred the respondents from employing alien workers in the CNMI.

He ordered the respondents to pay Cotin $375, Andres $45, and Agpawa $116 in reimbursement for expenses unlawfully collected.

Cody also found the respondents liable to all complainants for failing to provide them contracts but did not award any monetary damages to the complainants.

The hearing officer, however, issued a ruling favorable to the respondents with respect to Agpawa’s unpaid overtime wages claim as well as the transportation expenses claim by Cotin and Andres.

Cody allowed the complainants to seek a new employer.

Agpawa, Cotin, and Andres filed the labor complaint against the respondents on Aug. 25, 2003.

The complainants—all employees or former employees of Leonard Ramos—had worked as security guards for Leonard Security Agency from about 1999 until 2003.

When the business closed, the three filed the complaint alleging four causes of action: reimbursement of processing fees and other assorted expenses for all three; unpaid wages for Agpawa; unpaid transportation fees for Cotin and Andres; and failure to provide copies of employment contracts to all three of them.

The case was forwarded to the Labor Division for investigation. The division never issued a determination regarding this case.

In 2007, the Labor Hearing Office placed the case on the hearing calendar at the request of complainants. At that time, Anthony Long, Leonard Ramos’ lawyer, stated that he had no means to contact his client and was unaware of his whereabouts.

Shortly before the hearing in November 2008, Long disclosed that he had received a telephone call from his client, who is currently serving in the U.S. Coast Guard.

Perfecto C. Ramos managed the day-to-day operations of the Leonard Security Agency. In this capacity, he made daily work assignments, supervised the work of complainants and acted as an agent of the agency.

The complainants argued that Perfecto Ramos’s involvement in the business made him a “de-facto” employer in this case.

Perfecto Ramos is a nonresident worker who was deported from the CNMI in 2002. He was barred from re-entering the CNMI for five years.

In his order, Cody pointed out that as many of the claims in the complaint related to events that occurred two to four years before the filing of the complaint, a central legal issue in this case is whether these claims are barred by the applicable statute of limitations.

Cody said the case involves various labor claims against respondents that happened over a period ranging from 1999 through 2003.

Complainants’ claims are based on the Nonresident Workers Act and the CNMI Minimum Wage and Hour Act.

Under those provisions, Cody said, the law states that: “Every action shall be forever barred unless commenced six months after the cause of action accrued, except that a cause of action arising out of willful violation may be commenced within one year after the cause of action accrued.”

“The facts of this case do not justify any ‘tolling’ even under complainants’ interpretation of that term, because Leonard Ramos continued making regular visits to Saipan over a prolonged period during much of the time covered by this complaint,” Cody said.

Complainants testified that Leonard Ramos visited Saipan from Guam nearly every weekend in 1999, and continued to visit the business in successive years, albeit less frequently.

Given such contacts, Cody said, complainants had ample time and opportunity to file a labor case and to serve it personally upon Leonard Ramos during the period from 1999 to 2003.

“The record establishes that complainants delayed the filing of these labor claims for several years, even as they were renewing their employment in successive years,” he said.

The three complainants, Cody said, failed to show that the delay on their part in filing a claim in 1999, 2000, 2001, or 2002, was reasonable.

“They had sufficient time and opportunity to file a labor complaint, yet failed to do so,” he said.

He said the applicable period of this complaint is from Aug. 25, 2002, until Aug. 25, 2003.

“As a result, most of the claims for reimbursement of expenses and unpaid wages, which arose prior to Aug. 25, 2002, are time-barred,” he said.