IPI blames miscommunication

Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC chief executive officer Mark Brown, second left, speaks to members of the Commonwealth Casino Commission while company legal counsel Philip Tydingco looks on in yesterday’s board meeting at the Joeten-Kiyu Public Library Technology Room in Susupe. (Jon Perez)

Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC chief executive officer Mark Brown told the Commonwealth Casino Commission that bad information was the root cause of the confusion between the construction workers and the casino hotel developer regarding the issue on their compensation and concerns about the validity of their H-2B visas.

Brown joined IPI vice president for human resources Bertha Leon Guerrero, general counsel Philip Tydingco, and vice president for construction Eric Poon in yesterday’s CCC board meeting at the Joeten-Kiyu Public Library’s Technology Room in Susupe to personally explain their side and to clear things up.

He said that everyone in the community knows what they have been doing since Saipan is a small island. “Everything that we do in our company is multiplied by 10. We deal with hundreds of people. [Another hotel], for example, may lay off 20 people, we laid off 200. Everything is multiplied.”

“In this particular situation, we’re doing everything to exactly take care of the person that’s here. Look at me and my career, the employees come first while our customers and guests come second. It has always been my mantra. In this situation, we’re talking about bad information,” said Brown.

He wants to clear the record that the workers will get paid on the final day of their work day, which means they will be receiving their final paychecks tomorrow. “They have options: they could have worked, and we thought that they would all go to work because they all need money to go home to their families in the Philippines.”

“They can work until today [Wednesday] and they would get their paychecks on Friday, which is payday. If they had personal time left, they will receive that with their wages. Their personal time and their plane tickets.”

Brown said the information passed on to the workers did not directly came from them. “The person that actually held that meeting gathered 100 people. You’re trying to calm these people down. The person was the Taiwanese construction leader that actually said in the meeting that you’re going to get your checks tomorrow and that’s where it came from.”

“It wasn’t from us, we all along said that your permit ends today (Wednesday, the 30th). You work until that day, you are paid ‘till that day, your [accrued paid time off] is there, and your plane tickets will be coming,”

He also explained that the workers’ H-2B visas have a 10-day validity period that could end their worries of getting branded as overstayers. “You have 10 days to stay on the island and you’re still staying in the housing that we provided. The miscommunication piece with that person saying that their checks are due tomorrow, that’s something that we can’t control.”

Brown then assured the community that they are here for the long haul. “That’s what crushes me, I also lay at night and can’t sleep over these things. I beg the community, we’re all in this together. We have a half-built building that we need to get completed and done.”

“[But] we have now, hundreds of Filipino construction workers that have to go home. We didn’t make that rule. It just happened and now we have to scramble. Where would the other workers would be coming from?”

Filipino construction workers holding H-2B visas need to leave the islands after the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services removed the Philippines from the list of countries that are qualified for the said temporary working visa program.

Brown added that IPI is already taking care of the flight details of all Filipino construction workers. “Some are leaving on Saturday and some on Sunday. They can’t leave all together. There’s a lot of work that our company goes through between booking plane tickets and getting their checks ready. That’s what we’ve been doing this [Wednesday] morning.”