THE remaining employees of Imperial Pacific International received their salaries last week for two past pay periods, but they didn’t get paid on Friday for their most recent payroll.
Ken Taijeron, one of the security guards manning the unfinished IPI casino hotel in Garapan, said he received on Thursday his paychecks for the February 21 to March 6 and March 7 to March 20 pay periods.
He said they were supposed to get paid on Friday for the March 26 to April 1 pay period, but they did not receive their salary.
There are still 17 security guards who report for duty, although there were days when some of them refused to show up for work because of the nonpayment of their salaries, according to another security guard who spoke on condition of anonymity.
IPI security guards are paid for 64 hours bi-weekly.
The security guard who declined to be identified said many of them received Pandemic Unemployment Assistance monies when they were furloughed at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
An IPI source told Variety that they are still waiting for news from the U.S. Department of Labor regarding the $250,000 security deposit remitted by the casino investor to USDOL in May 28, 2021 as required by consent judgment issued by the federal court against IPI last year.
The consent judgment allows USDOL to hold the funds for a year.
Jess Aquiningoc, the team leader of IPI’s construction workers tasked to remove the two remaining towers at the construction site, said they will resume their work only if IPI “will put in writing that we will get our paychecks.”
He said the handrails of tower No. 5 are already falling apart and pose a hazard to the public.
“The longer IPI waits, the more serious a problem they’re facing,” Aquiningoc added.
Portions of tower No. 6 that have been left on the ground are now rusting.
Security guards man Imperial Pacific International’s villas 24 hours a day and seven days a week.