Rulings back LI company in workers rights case

BY MICHAEL AMON and RIDGELY OCHS | michael.amon@newsday.com
ridgely.ochs@newsday.com

9:26 PM EDT, September 13, 2007

A Long Island healthcare company said Thursday it had been vindicated by separate decisions in Washington and Manila clearing it and an affiliated recruitment agency in the Philippines of violating worker rights.

The decisions by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Philippines Overseas Employment Administration dealt a blow to the cause of 26 Filipino nurses who resigned en masse in April 2006.

Ten of them now face indictment in Suffolk in connection with their actions. They had complained of working conditions at the facilities of SentosaCare, a Woodmere company with more than 20 nursing homes, statewide including at least eight on Long Island.

The Justice Department's Office of the Special Counsel for Immigration-related Unfair Employment Practices dismissed on Aug. 31 the nurses' complaint that SentosaCare discriminated against them.

The special counsel said there was "insufficient evidence" to bring the nurses' case to a departmental hearing officer who has the power to impose monetary damages.

On Sept. 4, Philippine recruitment regulators threw out the nurses' charges that Sentosa Recruitment Agency duped them into emigrating under false pretenses.

"This finding underscores that the allegations brought against these two firms were fiction," said Howard Fensterman, a SentosaCare attorney.

Felix Vinluan, a lawyer for the nurses, said the nurses would appeal the case in the Philippines and said "political personalities" had wrongly intervened.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote letters to Philippine government officials on behalf of SentosaCare in June 2006 after Sentosa Recruitment Agency had its license suspended based on allegations by the nurses.

The suspension was lifted on June 8, 2006, six days after Schumer wrote to ask for a "review" of SentosaCare's dispute with the nurses. Another official, Michael Defensor, then chief of staff to Philippine President Gloria Macagapal-Arroyo, said he advocated lifting the suspension after hearing complaints from SentosaCare and receiving Schumer's letters.

Schumer defended the letters, saying that they took no sides in the dispute and merely requested that Sentosa Recruitment Agency be given due process."They were pro forma letters that we write for hundreds and hundreds of New Yorkers," Schumer said.

Vinluan noted that while the justice department's special counsel had declined to pursue the nurses' charges, the nurses had decided three months ago to bring the complaint to the hearing officer directly and possibly recoup back pay.

The move keeps their case alive, but reduces the amount of damages the nurses can win.

Of the nurses who resigned, 10 face trial in Suffolk on charges of endangering the welfare of children. Prosecutors said their resignations caused a staffing crisis at Avalon Gardens Rehabilitation and Health Care Center, a SentosaCare facility in Smithtown, that endangered the lives of six children in a ventilation unit there. Vinluan is charged with conspiracy for encouraging their actions.

The nurses deny the charges and contend that SentosaCare's treatment -- most centering on pay and benefits -- drove them to resign.