THE Turkish construction workers who sued Imperial Pacific International LLC last year for not paying them the federal minimum wage have also filed a discrimination lawsuit in federal court against the Saipan casino operator.
The latest lawsuit named IPI’s parent company, Imperial Pacific Holdings Limited, as defendant. The plaintiffs are asking for an unspecified amount of damages and demanding a jury trial.
The plaintiffs — Özcan Genç, Hasan Gökçe, and Süleyman Köş — through attorney Richard Miller allege that IPI engaged in a company-wide practice of employment discrimination, both intentional and systemic, on the basis of national origin, against the plaintiffs and similarly situated Turkish employees/former employees.
According to the lawsuit, Özcan Genc started working for IPI in January 2020 as a foreman and the leader of the welding and drywall team. Genc’s title on IPI’s certificate of employment was construction carpenter, and his salary was $21,840.00 a year.
Hasan Gökçe started working for IPI in January 2020 as a plumber, master of pipe installation, and plumbing foreman. Gökçe’s title on IPI’s certificate of employment was plumber, and his salary was stated therein as $21,840.00 a year.
Süleyman Köş started working for IPI in January 2020 as an electrician and was promoted to electrical foreman in June 2020. Süleyman’s title on IPI’s certificate of employment was electrician, and his salary was $17,368.00 a year. However, since his promotion to foreman, his base wage rate increased to $10.50 an hour, which annualized to a full-time salary of $21,840, the lawsuit stated.
Around December 2020, the three plaintiffs filed a complaint of discrimination with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
IPI terminated their employment on or about December 2020, the lawsuit stated.
On Oct. 25, 2021, the EEOC issued a notice of right to sue.
According to the lawsuit, during the same period when IPI was employing the plaintiffs to work on the Imperial Palace casino/hotel resort in Garapan, IPI also employed other construction workers, including Taiwanese.
All of the Taiwanese workers were, like the plaintiffs and members of the class, employed by IPI under the H-2B visa program.
IPI employed the Taiwanese workers to perform the same types of work that the plaintiffs and members of the class performed, the lawsuit stated.
With respect to the types of work they performed, the Taiwanese workers had the same or similar levels of skills, qualifications, and experience as the plaintiffs and members of the class.
However, the Taiwanese workers were paid by IPI at a wage rate significantly higher — in some instances, nearly two times higher — than the plaintiffs and members of the class, the lawsuit stated.
“IPI and IPIH’s upper-level management, meaning those persons who were actually in control of IPI’s policies and management-level decision-making, intentionally discriminated against employees with Turkish national origin (and employees of any other non-Taiwanese national origin),” the lawsuit alleged.
It added that IPI and IPIH never had a system for setting wage rates for construction workers based on objective criteria.
According to the lawsuit, “The persons within IPI and IPIH’s upper-level management who made the management-level decision-making as to wage rates to be paid to IPI’s construction workers, including without limitation, the plaintiffs and members of the class and the Taiwanese workers, were either themselves of Taiwanese origin or were related to or in a relationship with persons of Taiwanese origin, and intentionally and without any legitimate reason, set higher wage rates for Taiwanese workers than for workers of other national origins.”
As a result of IPI’s discriminatory conduct, the plaintiffs and members of the class have suffered damages, including without limitation, reduced wages, their lawsuit stated.
As for their Fair Labor Standard Act complaint, in January 2021, Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona of the District Court for the NMI granted their petition for a preliminary Fair Labor Standards Act certification of collective action against IPI and its parent company IPI Holdings, Ltd.
Genc, Gökçe and Köş filed the complaint “on behalf of themselves and other similarly situated” H-2B workers who were recruited from Turkey. They are master plumbers, carpenters, electricians, construction workers and foremen who were recruited in 2019.
The complainants said they were promised above minimum wages, substantial overtime pay, and round-trip tickets.
IPI also promised the Turkish workers that it would hire a cook who could prepare the kind of food suited for them, the complaint stated. According to the complaint, IPI retaliated against them for their protest actions.
Miller, who also represents the plaintiffs in the case, requested the court last December to schedule a status conference to address the status of their motion for entry of partial default judgment.
IPI is facing several other lawsuits from former vendors and other former employees in federal and local courts as well as complaints filed with the Commonwealth Casino Commission.
In Jan. 2021, the federal court issued a stop order at IPI’s hotel/casino construction site. As for IPI’s casino, it shut down in March 2020 with the onset of the Covid-19 global pandemic.
