By Haidee V. Eugenio
Variety Assistant Editor

A POLICE officer has been ordered by the Department of Labor to pay her house worker $3,250 in unpaid salary, liquidated damages and additional charges that were the responsibility of the employer.
Labor Hearing Officer Herbert D. Soll, in a March 7 administrative order, disqualified Melissa Bauleong from employing nonresident workers in the CNMI, until such time as she pays her house worker, Marcela A. Palarca.
Soll said Bauleong owes Palarca $1,600 in unpaid salary, another $1,600 in liquidated damages, $25 for the labor permit which the employee paid for instead of the employer, and another $25 the employer borrowed from the employee to buy cooking gas last year — for a total of $3,250.
Bauleong is a police officer 1 at the Department of Public Safety, which was confirmed yesterday by DPS public information officer Lei Ogumoro and Palarca herself.
Soll, in his order, said Palarca may seek transfer relief for a period of 45 days from the date of service of the administrative order.
“Now I’m looking for a job,” Palarca told Variety in a brief telephone interview yesterday.
Palarca started working for Bauleong in March 2006 under an approved nonresident worker permit. The contract provided for a monthly salary of $400.
According to the labor hearing officer, Bauleong failed to pay Palarca’s full salary in May 2006 and continued to make only partial payments until November 2006 when the house worker stopped working and filed a labor complaint.
As of November 2006, the employer had failed to pay $1,600 in wages that were due to the complainant.
Bauleong intentionally did not show up at the March 5 hearing held at the Labor office in San Antonio, despite the attempts of both Labor and DPS to get her to attend.
Labor’s service officer phoned a number of times in an attempt to meet Bauleong in order to serve her with notice of the hearing on March 5. Bauleong agreed to meet with the service officer, but she did not follow through on this.
Labor notified Bauleong’s employer — the DPS commissioner — of her apparent avoidance of the hearing notice.
According to Labor, the respondent’s employer sent word to Bauleong to go to the Labor Hearing Office on the morning of March 5.
“As the parties waited for respondent’s arrival in the hearing room, a fellow employee of the respondent appeared and testified that a few hours earlier, he had spoken with the respondent at her home. He told her that there was a hearing that required her presence and she assured him that she would prepare herself and go to the hearing. She did not appear on that day and made no contact with the hearing office,” said Soll.
Soll, in his three-page administrative order, said that Bauleong’s behavior — coupled with the fact that she ignored the notice to appear for the investigation and for mediation of the case — indicates that she had knowledge of the allegations against her and was aware of the time she was to appear.