IMPERIAL Pacific International’s former construction team leader, who submitted his resignation letter last week, said IPI has refused to pay him his salary for one pay period plus a total of $4,000 in paid time off that accumulated over two years.
Former Imperial Pacific International construction team leader Alex Aquiningoc checks, for the last time, the elevator his team used in performing their job at the IPI construction site in Garapan.
Jess Aquiningoc and his team of 15 construction workers were tasked to remove the tower cranes from the unfinished hotel casino building in Garapan.
“For all the six years I’ve worked with IPI, their promises have never been fulfilled,” he told Variety. “All these promises and delayed payroll have caused so much damage to my credit. I have borrowed from families and friends just to make ends meet.
Aquiningoc said IPI even had the audacity to ask him to work on May 31. His task would be to move a big machine from one place to another in Tanapag because IPI can no longer pay storage fees.
“Not only that they asked me to do this work for them again, but on the condition that I will agree to a reduced salary. Where is the common sense to this logic? I asked to get paid for what I was owed and in return they want me to work for them again on the condition that I agree to receive less?”
Aquiningoc said he is aware that IPI is expecting to receive its $250,000 security deposit from the U.S. Department of Labor. He also noticed that IPI has the money to pay its attorneys from the U.S.
Moreover, IPI collects rental payments from tenants of former IPI staff housing units that are now being rented out to local residents, Aquiningoc said.
“I am not asking to be paid more or less, but simply what I was owed,” he added.
He said there were times when the checks paid to him by IPI bounced which resulted in penalties that he had to pay.
He also said that IPI has asked him to stop giving information to the media regarding the casino investor.
“I have been loyal to this company since Day 1. I came to their call at any given time of the day or night. Sometimes as early as 3 in the morning or at midnight when the fire broke out at their Concord warehouse. I had to call my team to assist the firefighters in moving all the debris with heavy equipment so that the fire department could get to the fire. My phone never stopped ringing on my day off, sick leave, vacation or even during my compassionate time during the untimely death of my mother and uncles,” he said.
IPI has “forced” him to reveal all this to the media “because they have caused so much damage to their employees,” Aquiningoc said.
He also accused IPI of deducting medical and dental insurance premiums from his paychecks even after the healthcare provider had already terminated the contract.
He said he found out that the amounts deducted from his paycheck had not been remitted to the providers.
“I was admitted at the Commonwealth Health Center last November 2021 and not a single IPI representative responded to my call for help. Due to lack of insurance, I acquired another bill to my name,” he said.
“How many illegal acts does IPI have to do for government officials or the CNMI governor to come to the rescue of all IPI employees that have suffered the same as I did? I have called the Office of the Governor to schedule a meeting with the governor…but nothing has been done to schedule a meeting. Coming out like this to the media, IPI will probably not pay me, but there are other legal ways for me and the rest of the IPI employees to get paid. No one is above the law,” Aquiningoc said.
Variety was unable to get a comment from IPI.
