The declarations of Ramazan Tekten, Ertal Gul and Ali Cakir were attached to the motions for preliminary certification of collective action filed on their behalf by attorney Richard C. Miller on Dec. 10, 2020.
They are three of the 28 construction workers from Turkey who filed complaints against IPI and its contractor, IDS Development Management & Consultancy, for not paying them minimum wage and overtime, and their salaries since Oct. 1. They are also alleging that IPI retaliated after they staged their protest actions, and forced them to eat Chinese food.
Their fellow Turkish workers, Ozcan Genc, Hasan Gokce and Suleyman Kos, are seeking certification of collective action by informing the federal court that they, the 28 Turkish H-2B workers, “have already signed written consents to opt into this Fair Labor Standards Act or FLSA collective action.”
They added, “Because the Turkish workers who came to work for defendants in Saipan on the H-2B temporary worker program in 2019–20 are similarly situated, plaintiffs respectfully request that the Court grant preliminary certification of this FLSA collective action and enter an order:
“(1) preliminarily certifying as a class all Turkish H-2B workers petitioned in 2019 by IPI and employed by IPI in Saipan in 2020;
“(2) finding that the 28 Turkish workers whose written consents are filed as Exhibit 5 have affirmatively and effectively opted in to the collective action; and
“(3) issuing opt-in notice to all potential members of the collective-action class.”
‘Broken promises’
Through an interpreter, Tekten said the promises made by IPI and IDS for work were “equal work and equal rights” as well as meals prepared by a Turkish cook and daily calories checked by a doctor.
He said IPI also promised that the remittance fees for the salaries they receive would be covered, and all their Social Security and hospital expenses would be covered as well.
He said IPI promised them a minimum of $2,500 monthly salary plus overtime. In six months, IPI promised them paid leave, he added. Their salaries were supposed to be paid to them every two weeks without delay, he said.
“During this time, we had financial difficulties and no payments were made to us. I spent about $250 from Ankara on my way to Saipan. We landed in Saipan on Dec. 30, 2019 at night. We came here with Turkish friends. We were about 18 people. We signed a contract between Imperial Pacific and us. But we signed this for entry to work. It was all in English. We do not know its content and what it is,” Tekten said.
“When we could not get a salary, we tried to get through the troubled days by providing financial and moral support to each other. None of the promises made to Turkish workers other than accommodation and internet were kept. The internet has been cut after about seven months…. When we started to complain and protest against IPI and IDS, they first cut our shifts, then they didn’t let us work our normal working hours,” he added.
Tekten said the delays in payroll not only affected him here, “but affected also our families in Turkey because I could not send enough money for the needs of our family.”
“My psychology has deteriorated,” he said. “I lost 16 kg in ten months and my hair has turned gray I’m really embarrassed when I say this. I have never experienced such and similar events in my previous overseas jobs and I am surprised to experience such things in a place [that is part of] America. Since we came to Saipan, we have not received any salary in line with the promises made,” Tekten added.
For his part, Ertan said IPI forced them to resign when they started complaining.
“They said that if we don’t resign, they won’t buy our departure flight ticket. They said that they will return the promissory note and make the 13th paycheck payment once we give a signature manifesting that we obtained all of our rights to an IDS lawyer in Turkey,” he said.
“I have made my family experience twice as much of the troubles I had here because I could not get paid on time…. We had debts we could not pay and we had a hard time. These caused us to experience financial and moral collapse. I am very embarrassed to explain this,” Ertan said.
Cakir said during his work on Saipan, he was injured in an accident on Jan. 28, 2020.
“There were neither guiding personnel nor company officials who came to visit me during the treatment process,” he said.
After four months, he said he was paid for 15 days of work from the traffic insurance.
However, he still spent $270 out of his own pocket, “for my treatment and checkups.”
“The company just bought me $17 worth of medicine then later on took that expense back from me. I still have pain in my arm after the accident I had,” Cakir said.
IPI, he added, did not provide him a copy of the traffic accident report until four months “after my own efforts and insistence, and I was not paid for the days I had a report.”
“We were told that we are working under American laws here. We were told that every person is equal. Here we were told that when we have a health problem, the authorities will take care of it and there is no fee. When we went to the hospital when there was a health problem, we were told that eight hours of that day would be written on a check,” Cakir said, adding that he never experienced in any other country he has visited before the troubles that he had here on island.
“Our pride was really hurt here, [IDI] project manager Mustafah Turan cursed [us] and we lost our self-confidence — we were psychologically affected,” Cakir said.
“When we came to Saipan, the IPI executives gave us a briefing, telling us, ‘here you work under American laws, every employee is equal, nobody here can force you to work, nobody can humiliate you. Please report any trouble while working here.’”
But now, “despite our verbal and written notification, we could not receive any response. We have not been able to explain our troubles to our family for three months,” he said.
