SHRM members urged to join CW-1 signature drive

Josephine Mesta, a Human Resources director of Hyatt Regency Saipan and board member of the Society for Human Resource Management, is urging the CNMI human resources community to join the signature drive to extend the CNMI-Only Transitional Worker program that the Northern Marianas Business Alliance Corp. initiated last Monday.

“If you think that you and the business you own or work for are not going to be affected by this CW-1 issue, then I think this should be revisited. The reality is, we are all affected whether you have nonresident workers or not,” Mesta said during Thursday’s SHRM meeting at Pacific Islands Club Saipan.

“At some point, this entire island is going to get affected by it,” she added.

U.S. Citizenship Immigration Services has announced a reduction of 3,000 slots in the CW-1 program, in accordance with Public Law 110-229, the law that gave jurisdiction to the federal government to handle CNMI immigration.

The CNMI government and business community have been scrambling to make the community understand the adverse effects of the CW-1 reduction.

The NMBAC itself is conducting a signature drive to organize the community and gather information about the impact of the CW-1 reduction on their lives and businesses and support the proposed amendments to P.L. 110-229 to make it more aligned with the CNMI economy.

“We encourage you to participate in the signature drive and survey. We would like to get as many signatures as we can and get many survey questionnaires filled and answered so we can present them to Washington, D.C.,” Mesta said

“They don’t understand what’s going on here and, unless we present our case, nothing is going to change. Hopefully, we will be more prepared than the previous presentation and trying to play tag team so whoever is good in that area will be ready to answer questions that come our way,” Mesta added.

Mesta emphasized the need to educate everyone in Washington, D.C. as well as the CNMI community about the impact of the CW reduction.

“We think a lot of education has to go out that we need to do it from our side. …A lot of people say, ‘Never mind, let the Chinese go home.’ People say this without thinking of the consequences. …Sorry to say but the business that we get from the Chinese is a big portion of our tourism as they are the ones coming in here and giving us business,” Mesta said.

“I remember when I got the news about the reduction. I thought, ‘Well, Hyatt is not really affected because we have a high percentage of U.S. workers’ but we are talking about 3,000 slots. I realized we have Topline (cleaning agency), these are our housekeeping people, we have security and most of them are nonresidents. If there are no workers, who is going to clean the rooms and who is going to handle security?” she asked.

Mesta said this is the time that the CNMI community must come together.

“At the end of the day, as HR people, we are the ones who are going to be responsible. We are the ones who are going to tell the people that we would have to cut their work hours, we will have to take your benefits away and we are going to have to send them home,” she added.