Smart companies/most companies file Labor Condition Applications (LCAs) for more than one location. That way, a new H-1 petition, etc., is not required if an employee transfers permanently to a new location.
The clearest example is a company with ten locations in the US. When the original H-1 package is filed, all ten locations (and their PWDs) are included in one LCA. In this way, we avoid two regulations: the Department of Labor (DOL) requires a new LCA for a new location; and CIS requires a new H-1 process if a new LCA is required.
We avoid all of this expense and wasted time by simply including any possible place of relocation in the original LCA. We have prepared one LCA for more than 50 locations for a placement company, based on anticipating where it might have clients in the future. Sometimes a new client would retain the placement company in a new location not listed on our LCA, but at least we tried to cover as many as possible. The point being that the company does not have to have a presence in every location the employee might end up. We just include all locations which are theoretically possible.
For those thinking that getting multiple PWDs is time-consuming by itself, that is true. But it is not as time-consuming or as costly as filing new H-1 cases for each relocation. And for companies that do not believe this is legally possible, a quick review of the DOL and CIS regulations – along with the fact that we have been doing this since the early 1990s when the regulations for IMMACT ’90 went into effect – will allay those fears. If your company is not protecting itself this way, there is no time like now to save time and money!
P.S. And, yes, we have encountered situations where a company’s attorney (who, by the way, represents the foreign worker also, whether the attorney realizes this or not!) did not use multiple locations on the original LCA either out of ignorance or simply to create more work/money for the attorney.
