Tinian company gets suspended $1,000 fine

Tinian Trading International Inc. was fined $1,000 for failing to abide by Department of Labor employment regulations but the fine was suspended for a year provided that the company complies with all labor rules during the one-year period.

Labor’s Enforcement Section imposed the penalty based on evidence that the employer, through its manpower services manager, Principia Monkeya, failed to meet its legal obligation to post employer declarations or job responses required under Labor’s employment rules and regulation.

Labor hearing officer Jerry Cody suspended the fine for one full year provided that Monkeya complies with all local employment regulations.

Monkeya was warned of the company’s legal obligation via a notice of violation filed by Tinian Labor Enforcement on Nov. 24. The legal obligation requires the employer to file a declaration or response for each U.S. status qualified job applicant who expresses an interest when applying on the Marianas labor website but is not hired. In order to fulfill the labor requirement of the declaration, the employer has to provide at least a short response on the website explaining the action taken when considering each applicant and the reasons why an applicant is not chosen for hire.

Principia testified during the hearing that she was the sole employee of Tinian Trading International Inc., which provides manpower services to Hong Kong Entertainment Overseas Investments or HKE, which owns the Tinian Dynasty Hotel and Casino.

Monkeya noted that she began work with the company in July of this year and did not have prior knowledge of employer operations and management when she was hired.

In December 2014 to January 2015, the company posted nine job vacancies in an attempt to fill positions at the Tinian Dynasty. After the JVA’s were posted, U.S. applicants who expressed their interest in the JVA’s were not given any response.

Monkeya states that she is unaware as to whether her employer ever contacted the interested job applicants but was aware that no one was hired for the jobs listed on the website.

Cody acknowledged that the company’s hiring effort was put on hold due to federal investigations into the Dynasty’s labor and accounting practices.

Before the hearing, the original sanction was a fine of $18,000 or $2000 per JVA posted but Cody said that a suspended sanction was more appropriate in this case than a monetary fine.