In her six-page Interim Progress Labor Report submitted to the Legislature, Labor Deputy Secretary Cinta Kaipat said they will be publishing the final notice covering all remaining cases by the end of July.
She said after Associate Judge Perry Inos issued an opinion holding that the Labor Department must adjudicate bonding claims they immediately organized and divided the potential bonding claims by categories.
The Labor Division also put some other staff members in the Hearing Office temporarily to help with handling case record and other tasks, she said, adding that Labor director Barry Hirshbein was even transferred back to his former post as a hearing officer to help out with these cases.
Kaipat said the potential bonding claims were segregated into four categories: labor and agency cases decided in 2008; cases collected by the federal ombudsman decided in 2007 and 2006; cases collected by the federal ombudsman decided in 2005 and prior years; and all other cases.
She said her office already published notices in the English and Chinese press on cases that were decided in 2008, including those resolved at the Ombudsman’s office covering the years 2005 to 2007.
“We obtained from the federal ombudsman his entire list of persons who had bond claims. This list was compiled as the result of six weeks of intensive advertising in the local press and with foreign worker organizations by the ombudsman for persons with such claims,” she said in her report.
The Labor Department also held a public meeting on bond claims and they used the information they obtained during the meeting.
“Because of large-scale business closures and failures in 2005-2007, there are a considerable number of bonding claims from cases completed in those years,” she said.
There are relatively few bonding claims arising out of new cases, Kaipat said, citing as example the first 183 labor cases decided in 2008 which yielded only nine bond claims.
“This is primarily because we mediate almost all labor complaints within 15 days of filing and we hold hearings on labor complaints very promptly, usually within 90 days of filing,” she said.
By resolving cases promptly employers have not become bankrupt or disappeared before the case is resolved, leaving the bonding claim as the only avenue for payment, she said.
With this, Kaipat said the Labor Office is expecting the bonding companies to appeal adverse decisions on these old bonding claims to the Labor Secretary.
She said those appeals will be decided promptly and the Labor office will deal with those old bonding claims in an efficient manner to complete the entire task by fall.
Kaipat said it is also likely that any adverse decisions by the Labor Secretary will be appealed to the Superior Court.
