Myers, the legal counsel for the 127 displaced alien workers who have sued the Department of Labor for not enforcing administrative awards, said Labor has set up a process that follows neither the old nor the new labor law.
Meanwhile, Myers said, Labor “is waiting for the nonresident worker to do something that might violate labor law, such as being alleged to have made a false statement, or not renewing within 10 days of renewal and thus working illegally, etc.”
He said Labor can then say that that the nonresident worker forfeits his award or order, memorandum, temporary work authorization, or temporary stay authorization.
The guest worker will then be subjected for deportation, he added.
Myers said Labor also “appears to be creating a process…[through which] a nonresident worker will lose all hope, give up, and decide to go back home because of no money, no job, and no justice.”
Under the old labor law, or the Nonresident Workers Act of 1983, there was no hearing in front of a hearing officer whose decision could be appealed to the secretary of Labor and the court, he said.
The old law, he added, provided that a hearing officer would go through a three-step process to determine how much should be paid before referring the matter for collection to the secretary of Labor.
In turn, the secretary would refer it for collection, presumably to the Attorney General’s Office, to sue the employer and or surety, Myers said.
The hearing officer could grant sanctions or liquidated damages against the employer and or surety if bad faith was found, Myers said.
Under the new law, or P.L. 15-108, the referral for collection will not go to the AGO but directly to the foreign workers who must pursue their claims in court, he added.
He expects more legal battles to stop Labor from using a process that, he said, violates the law.
“DOL appears to care not that it will surely use more and more valuable resources to do everything it can to avoid doing what the labor law says it must do,” he said.
