Jerry Cody, Labor’s hearing officer, said he finds no legal justification to grant Wilson J. Apostol transfer relief.
Apostol was employed as a building maintenance repairer from Oct. 1999 until Aug. 2009 by the corporation owned by Kyung Soo Lee.
In his complaint, Apostol said he received a notice of termination of his employment contract after he failed to report back to his work.
Apostol at that time was living in a small apartment on the corporation’s premises in Chalan Kanoa.
“The employee had a history of somewhat contentious relations with his co-workers, as well as with…management,” Cody said in his order dated June 8.
In early Aug. 2009, based on Golden Bird’s general manager’s testimony, Annie P. Pascua, the employee “began exhibiting a somewhat hostile attitude when dealing with Lee’s wife.”
Cody said Apostol also failed to report to work despite efforts by the management to talk and visit him in his apartment.
Lee told Apostol that if he wanted to return to the Philippine the corporation was willing to buy his ticket and “give some money for the trip,” Cody said.
The employer even offered to help Apostol find a new job after the employee indicated that he no longer wanted to work for Golden Bird.
In his order, Cody said the employer terminated Apostol based on his unauthorized absences from work.
The “employee admits he stopped coming to work after Aug. 11 but he argues that he was constructively terminated without cause,” the order stated.
According to Cody, CNMI law does not specifically address the doctrine of “constructive discharge.”
He said constructive discharge results when “job conditions are so difficult or unpleasant that a reasonable person in the employee’s shoes would have felt compelled to resign.”
Labor referred Apostol’s case to the department’s enforcement section for proceedings to revoke his umbrella permit.
