In the Matter of: Bank of America on behalf of Mullangi Naga Durga Vara Prasad,

September 14, 2016 -- The Board of Alien Labor Certification Appeals (“BALCA”) reversed the U.S. Department of Labor’s denial of Bank of America’s PERM application to permit Mullangi Naga Durga Vara Prasad to work permanently in the U.S. as a Software Engineer. The Board ruled that the Bank’s duplicate advertisements for the position in the same paper did not violate regulations requiring U.S. employers to advertise and recruit U.S. workers.

Bank of America put two Sunday ads in the Dallas Morning News and then a third ad in the mid-week edition of the paper.  Certifying Officer William Carlson said that the employer used the same recruitment medium to publish both the required advertisements in a newspaper of general circulation and the additional recruitment advertisement in a local newspaper.

The Bank asked the DOL to reconsider its decision, arguing it acted in good faith and that  posting the ad in the mid-week edition of the paper met the regulation’s “additional step” requirement.
At issue in the instant case is whether an employer can use the same paper to meet both the Sunday newspaper ad requirement and the additional “local or ethnic newspaper” requirement.

The BALCA board said the regulation does not discuss whether the same media can be used to satisfy both a mandatory step and an additional step. The Board held that an employer was allowed to place multiple ads in only one newspaper, the Dallas Morning News, to meet those recruitment requirements. It thus ordered that the denial of labor certification be reversed and that the case be remanded for certification.