THE former construction team leader tasked to remove the tower cranes from Imperial Pacific International’s hotel-casino building said he will sue IPI for its failure to pay the right amount of his paid time off or PTO.
Jesse Aquiningoc is on Guam meeting with his attorney to prepare the lawsuit against IPI.
He resigned earlier this month amid payroll delays.
In an interview on Monday, Aquiningoc said he and his attorney will be on Saipan soon to file his formal complaint against IPI.
He said the IPI management paid him his PTO based on an $18 an hour salary, but he said his salary was $28 an hour during the period he accumulated his PTO, and that was before he was furloughed.
He said IPI took him back late last year, specifically to remove the tower cranes. It was only at the time that they agreed on an $18 an hour wage rate, Aquiningoc said.
He said the amount of PTO he should receive must be based on his salary prior to the time he was furloughed because that was the time he accumulated the PTO.
He said IPI owes him a total of $4,700 in PTO based on his $28 an hour salary, but IPI paid him only $2,500 before he left Saipan earlier this month.
He also said that IPI’s major shareholder Cui Lijie promised him $28 an hour just to relocate a heavy machine at IPI’s warehouse in Tanapag.
He said he got offended by the offer because Cui Lijie basically wanted him to perform an additional job before IPI would pay him what it actually owed him.
Aquiningoc said with or without a new job in Tanapag IPI should pay him the right amount of his PTO.
He said he has received his salary for all the pay periods he worked for IPI, but it still owes 11 construction workers one more paycheck.
An IPI source, however, said the construction workers may not have noticed that one of the checks they received three weeks ago was for two pay periods.
The amount was smaller than what the workers expected because it was based on the number of hours that the construction workers actually worked, the IPI source said.
Aquiningoc believes that IPI “will continue to do what it does, and the workers and other people it owes money will continue to suffer” as long as Gov. Ralph DLG Torres is in office.
IPI is facing several lawsuits in local and federal courts from former workers and vendors, as well as complaints filed by the Commonwealth Casino Commission, which has suspended IPI’s casino license.
Former Imperial Pacific International construction team leader Jesse Aquiningoc, right, gestures as he talks to his co-workers at the IPI construction site in Garapan last month.
