CCC chair: Unpaid IPI workers is IPI’s problem, not court’s

File photo shows the fountain located in front of the Imperial Pacific Resort in Garapan. (FERDIE DE LA TORRE)

Commonwealth Casino Commission board chair Edward C. Deleon Guerrero said Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC just needs to follow and comply with federal court orders and pay their workers.

During Thursday’s CCC board meeting, Deleon Guerrero said the successive protest by IPI workers due to non-payment is not the problem of the U.S. District Court for the NMI, but IPI’s.

“Every day you have [workers] working without pay is another day of violation,” Deleon Guerrero told IPI project resident director Jing Zhou.

Zhou said IPI understands and that’s why the company is working on paying the workers.

The chairman expressed his view about the IPI workers’ protest last week outside the District Court when Zhou told CCC that the workers are back at the construction site of IPI’s resort/casino project and are working even though they have not received their two paychecks. He personally assured that IPI is working to process these workers’ paychecks.

Deleon Guerrero asked Zhou how they are going to complete the project when their workers are protesting at the District Court, rather than doing construction work because they have not been paid.

“This is very disturbing to know that people continue to work and yet they continue not getting paid. Particularly if they lost insurance. If there is an accident who is [going] to help them?” Deleon Guerrero asked.

At the same CCC meeting, IPI Treasury director Frances Mafnas and IPI human resources director Redie Dela Cruz disclosed that IPI has just hired a new payroll service provider in Guam to address the payroll problem with IPI employees.

Mafnas said that IPI’s payroll account at the Bank of Saipan in the amount of $800,000 was not just frozen but was actually being closed as a result of the District Court’s writ of execution.

Deleon Guerrero pointed out that the latest amendment to the casino license agreement requires IPI to finish the entire casino/resort by Feb. 20, 2021, and asked Zhou if he is going to complete the project by that date.

Zhou said it would be difficult, considering the two super typhoons that devastated Saipan as well as the COVID-19 pandemic and shortage of skilled labor. Zhou said the pandemic has had a massive impact on the construction site’s progress and caused IPI’s inability to schedule manufacturing technicians/inspectors to Saipan because of flight suspensions and quarantine restrictions.

He also disclosed that the status of the ongoing H-2B visa interview process remains unchanged as no further information has been provided by U.S. embassies.

With respect to the fire at one of IPI’s warehouses in Lower Base last June 12, Zhou said it damaged construction materials but that this will not delay the project.

He said they are redoing inventory and waiting for a report about the fire from the Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services.