In his Sept. 29 order, Hearing Officer Jerry Cody said Misamis Construction (Saipan) Ltd. failed to comply with the provisions of the administrative order on Aug. 12, 2008 and demonstrate its “good faith” efforts to meet the local hiring requirement.
“Misamis currently employs a total of 196 workers: 180 foreign national workers and 16 residents or citizens. Misamis does not even employ 10 percent of its workforce with resident workers,” the order stated.
Cody said Misamis also failed to submit its monthly list of local hires to Labor’s Division of Employment Services and Training, and this is in violation of the department’s Dec. 17, 2008 order.
A summary produced by Misamis of its employment record for 2009 revealed that it had three local residents in January, four in February, five in March, five in April, six in May, seven in June, 11 in July, 12 in August and 16 in September.
Obviously, Cody said, Misamis failed to meet the requirements to hire three new resident workers every month.
Over a nine-month period, he added, Misamis only hired three or more residents in two months — in June and Sept. 2009.
In the other months, not a single new resident worker was hired, he said.
According to Cody, Misamis operations manager Barry Ladd pledged to make more diligent efforts to locate and employ resident workers for the company’s construction projects.
Cody said he remains skeptical about Misamis’s willingness to increase its efforts to hire local workers.
The company remains under the obligation to employ a minimum of three new resident workers each month, and to file monthly reports of its hiring of resident workers with the Division of Employment Services and Training, he said.
On Dec. 17, 2008 Misamis was ordered to pay a $1,000 fee and was barred for one year from hiring additional foreign workers.
In its recent order, Labor told Misamis to pay a $2,000 fine in two installments within 15 days from the issuance of the order. The second payment must be paid within 30 days, Labor said.
Cody said the original deadline for Misamis to hire local workers each month is extended for the next six months or until March 29, 2010, and the company will continue to provide a list of local hiring to the Division of Employment Services and Training.
Assuming that Misamis complies with the requirement stated in the recent Labor order, all renewal applications of work permits for the company that the division currently is keeping “on hold” will be released, and certified job vacancy announcements will be issued for those applications, Cody said.
At the same time, the decision of the Division of Labor to deny the renewal application submitted by Misamis for its worker Crispulo C. Gregorio is reversed, Cody added.
Labor will resume processing his application, provided that the employer complies with the recent order, he said.
