By Emmanuel T. Erediano
& Gemma Q. Casas
Variety News Staff

LOCAL farmers interviewed by this reporter say they oppose the CNMI’s latest “labor reform law,” specifically its provision on the three-and-a-half-year stay limit for guest workers.
The law requires exiting workers to remain outside the CNMI for at least six months.
“What will happen to our crops if our farm workers are out for six months?” asks Lucy Norita Shilling, who has a one and a half acre farm on Capital Hill.
Shilling raised this concern during a meeting of local farmers on Saturday.
In an interview, Shilling said the law was enacted amid an increasing demand for CNMI agriculture products in the CNMI.
She said she could not imagine what her farm plot would be like without anybody tilling it and planting crops.
As part of her commitment to her customers, she said she tries to ensure they have enough produce to sell.
She said she depends heavily on her nonresident farmer. “How are we going to survive if he’s off-island for six months?” she asked.
Shilling said she would “love” to hire local residents to work on her farm, adding that she tried hiring two locals in the past “but it just did not work out.”
She said locals can be trained in farming “but where can we find those who are willing?”
Tilling the land, she added, is something that locals have no interest in doing.
Ray Camacho, another local farmer who has just been elected to the Saipan municipal council, said a majority of local farmers have nonresident workers.
For these workers to be out of the CNMI for six months is too long, he added.
Camacho said most crops are grown within a few months.
“Imagine how tall the grass would be before our farm workers come back after six months?” he said.
Gov. Benigno R. Fitial on Friday signed House Bill 15-38, or the Commonwealth Labor Act of 2007.
The new law, P.L. 15-108, will require guest workers to “exit” the CNMI beginning in 2011.
The government enacted two similar stay-limit laws in the past only to repeal them before they were supposed to take effect.
Both laws were also enacted amid “federal takeover” threats.
The government estimates that there were 20,000 guest workers as of September, but this figure will be down to 15,000 next year.
Rep. Jacinta M. Kaipat, Covenant-Saipan, the chief sponsor of H.B. 15-38, said the three and a half-year stay limit for foreign national workers would be counted from 2008.
The new law, which will take effect on Jan. 1, 2008, will no longer allow consensual transfers unless administrative labor cases are filed and the hearing officer recommends the transfer.
The governor said although the private sector has expressed some reservations about the new labor law, these will be ironed out in the promulgating rules for P.L. 15-108.
“My legal counsel will be meeting with them (this) week,” he said.
“It’s been a long road,” Kaipat said. “But I can assure you that we consulted everyone. Our goal was not just to favor one group of people. We didn’t want a system that would handcuff us.”
Sen. Maria T. Pangelinan, D-Saipan, who was also present during the bill signing, said she believes that the new law “will leave no room for abuses. History will be the arbiter of this Act.”
But some CNMI attorneys, including Federal Labor Ombudsman Jim Benedetto, said the bill may result in unfair treatment of guest workers.