By Gemma Q. Casas
Variety News Staff

A LAWMAKER says the Department of Labor should look into the Variety report that displaced garment workers are paying “fees” to facilitate their transfer to other employers.
Rep. Ray Yumul, Ind.-Saipan and vice chairman of the House Committee on Commerce and Tourism, asked Labor Department Secretary Gil San Nicolas and Immigration Director Melvin Grey to educate the workers about their rights.
Yumul said the law restricts garment workers from transferring to employers connected with other industries.
“The nonresident workers coming out of the garment manufacturing industry can only transfer within (other garment factories). This is a very grave concern to me. Soon to be unemployed workers are being taken advantage of,” Yumul said.
Some garment workers say they were indirectly or directly asked to pay anywhere from $1,000 to $1,500 for transfer employment.
Two major garment firms informed the Department of Labor they are shutting down within the next few days due to steadily declining orders from their buyers.
Michigan Inc., is closing on Friday while Grace International Inc. will shut down by April 7. The two firms have a combined workforce of more than 200 workers, mostly from China.
In his letter to San Nicolas and Grey, Yumul said: “There are perpetrators here in the CNMI that are taking advantage of this situation by attempting to extort monies from these desperate nonresident employees. All of this while public and private sectors of the CNMI economy continue to reel from our severe economic downturn. I am asking that your offices use any means necessary to educate nonresidents in the proper legal processes for successful transfer, assuming that there are no locally available residents willing to accept employment.”