In an email, Mustafa S. Turan said he and other Turkish laborers and supervisors came to the island late in 2019 “and worked very smoothly and gently up to Sept. 11, 2020 and received payrolls continuously except for some delays due to the financial difficulties of IPI as all [on] the island were aware.”
He said the 28 Turkish workers who have been protesting for their unpaid salaries, among other things, have a contract with IPI only “and definitely not with IDS.”
But their contract with IPI requires that they work with the IDS management team.
However, Turan said, the 28 workers “went on strike” on Sept. 11, 2020. They resumed working after 10 days, but demanded that they work under the supervision of IPI directly and not under IDS, Turan said.
These workers, Turan said, ignored the agreed rate of $8 to $10 an hour and insisted to be paid $22 an hour, which “is totally against the contract and the H-2B program.”
Imperial Pacific International construction workers from Turkey and Italy stage a protest outside the IPI human resources office in Sadog Tasi on Friday. Photo by Emmanuel T. Erediano
“They destroyed the relation between IPI and IDS and therefore we had to return to Turkey together with the other remaining Turkish laborers, engineers and [the] management team,” Turan said.
He said most of the 104 Turkish engineers and laborers have already returned to Turkey “except those 28 guys because they refuse to get back to their country and as well as their families. They prefer to settle down on Saipan in order to work for IPI and/or as independent subcontractors, which is totally against U.S. law.”
Turan added, “I and my wife loved Saipan. We had many good friends, relationships with islanders and other people, and [we] were planning to stay [on] the island for a long time, but due to the bad behavior of these workers we had to leave Saipan on Oct. 8, 2020.”
Because the matter is now before the court, the 28 Turkish workers’ legal counsel, Richard Miller, in an email said, “the proper forum for the parties to engage in this dispute is now the federal district court.”
He added that when IDS answers their complaint, his clients will be happy to see the dispute resolved in accordance with the law.
On Friday, the 28 Turkish workers, demanding their salaries, staged a protest in front of the IPI human resources office in Sadog Tasi.
