THERE is no conflict between federal labor law and CNMI casino law, according to Commonwealth Casino Commission Chairman Edward C. Deleon Guerrero.
He was responding to the report of Casino Commission Executive Director Andrew Yeom who said that when Imperial Pacific International pays all its employees to comply with U.S. labor law, IPI is violating Public Law 21-38, which requires IPI to obtain licenses from the CCC for IPI’s key employees.
Yeom told the commission that “our gaming law does not allow these individuals from getting paid.”
However, Yeom said, “we must be mindful that there is a labor law that protects even the undocumented workers in that they generally have the same wage and hour rights as other workers. Thus, the same federal wage and hour laws that apply to authorized workers generally apply to persons working without legal immigration status.”
“In our case,” he added, “we have legitimate workers in terms of status who provided their labor regardless of [a] gaming license. This is where I see that our local law may be in conflict with the federal law. One says ‘you must pay’ [while] the other one says ‘you shall not.’ Therefore, we should be careful about how we deal with this delicate situation.”
Yeom said IPI should not have put itself in this predicament, which could “only exacerbate the current ordeal for both IPI and us.”
Yeom recommended that “we stand down on this matter [for] now. I do think that we should forward a written warning…that they are in violation of the law and regulation by employing the casino’s key employees without obtaining CCC licenses. That way we are not ignoring the symptoms.”
He said the root cause of the problem is IPI’s unpaid regulatory fee.
But Deleon Guerrero said there is no conflict between CNMI casino law and federal labor law.
“We never said that employees should not be paid,” he added. “We are saying that Public Law 21-38 requires that CCC must notify IPI in writing that it is in violation [of the casino law].”
He said it is the local casino law that is being violated, not U.S. labor law.
“Do not confuse the two. It is not a conflict between federal labor law and CNMI gaming law. It never has been,” he added.
He said if IPI pays its casino key employees who are not licensed by the CCC, then IPI has violated P.L. 21-38, “but we did not say that IPI should not pay the employees they have hired.”
Commissioner Ramon Dela Cruz asked Yeom to work with IPI’s human resource director “to try and address this concern.”
Commonwealth Casino Commission Chairman Edward C. Deleon Guerrero listens to the report of Commission Executive Director Andrew Yeom — back to the camera — during a meeting in the CCC’s conference room at Spring Plaza in Gualo Rai on Thursday.
