CW transition plan included in Democrats platform

The CNMI Democratic Party has developed a Complete CW Transition Plan to address the need to create jobs by transitioning more U.S. locals into the workforce to reduce dependency on foreign laborers, which has been going on since 1983.

In a statement, the party said it has put together its platform months ago and a formal presentation to the voters will be made soon given the recent concerns over the CW transition plans by the Public School System and the Northern Marianas College.

Just recently this administration requested and was granted extension of CW program beyond the cutoff date of December 2014 pursuant to federal immigration law 110-229.

This request was made after five years of noncompliance to the mandates of PL 110-229, the Consolidate Natural Resources Act of 2008.

The Democratic Party said had the administration taken advantage and made efficient and effective use of the Technical Assistance Program available and required under Title VII of the CNRA, the “blanket” extension request would most likely not have been necessary.

Obviously, the party said, the failure of this administration to establish a transition program for recruitment, training, and hiring of local U.S. citizens into the private sector work market even with funding provided proves these conclusions:

-Previous and current administrations have no comprehensive plan for hiring U.S. unemployed citizens to replace CWs;

-This administration prefers the presence of CW in the Commonwealth;

-Lack of interest on the plight of thousands of unemployed youth and their future; and

-No confidence in U.S. citizens’ occupational abilities.

The party added that PSS recently admonished their failed attempt to train students for jobs in the tourism industry and the Board of Regents at NMC are also concerned about the need for NMC to be more aligned with workforce needs for employees.

To remedy this, the party has developed a public service program for students that will function like a state-wide vocational/technical training program applicable to all the entry level positions presently occupied by CWs.

When elected, candidates running under the Democratic Party will seek legislation requiring PSS and NMC to create a public service vocational program that will allow students to earn course credits for working in the community in their perspective fields of study.

The party said all public and private employers using CWs in their entry level positions will be required by law to receive a student(s) from PSS and/or NMC to be trained for the position(s) and upon graduation a student will be placed in the position permanently allowing for the exit of CWs.

The Democratic Party said its plan will create jobs for local students and allow for a more controlled and accountable transition of the CW workforce.

The CW Transition Program will cover virtually every field of employment where CWs are employed making for a complete approach to creating jobs for graduating high school students who don’t intend on going to college.

NMC students who participate in the program will attain and even higher level of education and experience in their fields of study, which should qualify them for potential supervisory positions.

High school students will gain as much as 1,500 hours and NMC students will also gain up to 1,000 hours of services. The details of how many course credit hours students will be able earn at work still needs to be worked out with PSS and NMC but the party is very confident its plan will solve PSS’ and NMC’s challenges for teachers and a way to train locals to replace CWs.

Benefits of the CW Transition Plan: The CW Transition Plan is a win, win, win, win opportunity for all the stakeholders: 1. Students will now get on-the-job training in exchange for course credits towards graduation. 2. Employers will get “part-time” free labor to train with the opportunity to observe and grade potential employees for hundreds of hours before hiring them. 3. PSS and NMC will experience a decrease in their need for teachers with students entering the Vocational Training Program which will definitely be a financial windfall for these institutions. 4. The CNMI will finally have a genuine working plan to replace as many of the CWs as possible before the five-year deadline expires. Each time the CNMI fails to respond to federal demands for change the islands end up being forced to change by the federal government so the CNMI must start reacting to our federal leadership instead of doing nothing which is what has happened with the CW program.

The Logistics & Transportation Challenges: The only challenge the CNMI will face with the CW Transition Plan is the logistics of setting up and coordinating the many jobs, creating the policies that will allow for course credits toward graduation, and the transportation logistics of getting students to work from school and back home.

The identification of employers, the jobs available and the creation of policies will be virtually costless to these institutions and the only real financial challenge will be paying for the additional transportation of students. The busing of these vocational education students from school after lunch to their jobsites does not pose that much of a problem since school buses are not functioning mid-day and bus routes can be established in the evenings for these students’ pick-up with the additional transportation cost being the only challenge.

However, much of this cost has already been considered by the federal government with the implementation of the Consolidated National Resource Act of 2008 (Federal Law 110-229) so the CNMI actually has the funding to cover these costs. This federal law grants funding for Training a local workforce but the CNMI has never taken full advantage of these available funds due to our lack of a CNMI-wide plan for training its youth and future workforce.

The party fully realizes that it may take us a bit longer to replace all the CWs and in fact we believe the CNMI may continue to need highly technical number of CWs to shore up its workforce. The party is also keenly aware of the general interests that most CWs only want to remain in the CNMI to work and are not seeking citizenship which we oppose. The party believes it is not fair to locals for all CWs to become citizens at once they must get in line for citizenship like other people who have followed the law which PL 110-229 provides.

In conclusion, the Democratic Party is convinced the present administration has done virtually nothing to implement a transitioning plan as it is the responsibility of the CNMI government to take the lead in transitioning the local workforce. Therefore, it has devised a real plan that will create guaranteed jobs for the islands’ youths when they graduate from PSS and/or NMC while transitioning as many of the CWs as possible out of the workforce. The party’s CW Transition Plan is a research-based and proven practice for training a workforce.