HOUSE Speaker Heinz S. Hofschneider, R-Saipan, and Rep. Ramon A. Tebuteb, R-Saipan, have pre-filed a measure that seeks to allow the Marianas Visitors Authority to hire non-resident professionals.
To authorize MVA to hire foreign employees, H.B. 13-79 would amend the law that exempts particular departments, agencies and other entities from the “blanket prohibition” on the hiring of non-resident workers.
The bill would allow MVA to hire a non-resident tourism consultant, a marketing manager and other technical and professional employees.
The lawmakers said MVA needs the professional and technical services of non-resident employees as “the locally available labor pool is insufficient” to provide such need.
But they said the measure would also seek to strike a balance between the need to continuously hire foreign workers and gradually withdraw from the use of alien labor.
“To accommodate both the social policy of phasing out non-resident labor and the economic reality of continued need, it is the purpose of this legislation to provide a mechanism whereby the number of non-resident workers employed by the commonwealth government will be gradually reduced through time,” said the lawmakers.
Thus, under the bill, MVA would implement a management intern program for employees to receive the necessary job skills and training to eventually fill the positions to be occupied by non-resident professionals.
To assure that local workers would be trained and eventually replace their alien counterparts, MVA would be mandated to report annually in writing, to the presiding officers of the Legislature, on the progress and status of the program.
