The Commonwealth Casino Commission is in a quandary as to how to deal with key employees of Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC who are unlicensed by the CCC, yet are still getting paid by IPI.

These employees—referred to in the business as “Casino Key Employees”—are casino employees who are involved in operation in a supervisory role. The rule requires that these employees be licensed by the CCC but that is not happening at the moment.

However, CCC executive director Andrew Yeom recommended to the CCC board during their monthly meeting last week that they should “stand down” on this matter for now.

Yeom said the CNMI’s gaming law does not allow these unlicensed CKE individuals from being paid. “Clearly, this is in violation of our gaming law as well as our regulation,” he said.

However, he pointed out, they must be mindful that there is a labor law that protects even undocumented workers in that they generally have the same wage and hour rights as other workers.

Thus, Yeom said, the same federal wage and hour laws that apply to authorized workers generally apply to persons working without legal immigration status.

In this case, he said, these are legitimate workers in terms of immigration status who provided their labor, regardless of the gaming license.

“This is where I see that our local law may be in conflict with the federal labor law. That one says you must pay versus the other one says that you shall not,” the executive director said.

Therefore, Yeom said,...

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