2/2/2005

Before DOS long-term vision can be accomplished, the backlog of  labor certification cases must be addressed. These are the cases that will be transferred and processed at the BECs in Philadelphia and Dallas within the next two years. 

To accomplish this goal, each BEC is staffed with 35-40 federal employees and approximately 100 contract workers. The contract workers will provide administrative support and the federal employees will adjudicate the cases. Recruitment efforts to fill the federal employee positions included notifying the State Workforce Agencies (SWAs) of the available positions. Dallas has completed more of its recruitment than Philadelphia.
 
Approximately 10,000 cases are in the Philadelphia BEC and contractors are in the process of entering data on the cases that were transferred from the Philadelphia Regional Office. Once the data is input, DOL will send Center Receipt Notification Letters (CRNL), expected to go to the employers having filed the labor certifications or to the attorneys of record on the cases. 

These letters will require response within 45 days to indicate the cases are still viable. If a response on a case is not 
received within 45 days it will be closed by the DOL, which has indicated that there will not be flexibility on this 45-day deadline.
 
The BECs will use a First-In / First-Out (FIFO) approach to all cases, meaning that the oldest cases will be processed first. A contractor has been hired specifically to determine which regions have the oldest cases and how to efficiently transfer these cases to the BECs. Though FIFO will be used for both RIR and traditional labor certification cases, they will each have a separate track. This means that an RIR processed under the FIFO system likely still will be processed faster than a traditional labor certification processed on a FIFO basis.

 

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