CONSTRUCTION workers who have not received their salaries are hoping that Imperial Pacific International will use its income from apartments to pay them.
They plan to discuss this issue with the Commonwealth Casino Commission which will hold its monthly meeting Thursday, March 31, said one of the workers, Jesse Aquiningoc.
He said they know that IPI has been collecting from the tenants of the apartments it owns, and these include Flame Tree and Vestcor in Sadog Tasi, the workers’ barracks in Chinatown and Chalan Laulau, and the Brown apartments on Capital Hill.
Aquiningoc said he and the other construction workers believe that IPI has enough money to pay them.
The workers did not receive their salaries in the past three payroll periods.
As team leader of the construction workers, Aquiningoc said he has brought this up with IPI management, but he has yet to get a response.
He said there are 15 of them who are tasked to dismantle the tower cranes from the unfinished IPI casino-hotel in Garapan.
Aquiningoc said they are hoping to get paid at least partially so they can remove the tower cranes which, he added, pose potential safety hazards.
“Those towers 300 feet from the ground are rusting and I estimate that in another couple of weeks, they may collapse,” Aguiningoc added.
As for the 17 security guards manning the IPI hotel-casino in Garapan, they continue to report for work despite not getting paid.
One of the security guards said IPI is counting on the $250,000 it deposited with the U.S. Department of Labor last year.
The security guard said soon, some of them will not report for work without getting paid at least partially.
He said there are several valuable items that need to be protected in the area, including the reburial site for the ancestral Chamorro remains that were dug up during the construction of the hotel-casino.
The construction of the site where ancestral Chamorro remains were reburied is still not finished. It is located next to the unfinished Imperial Pacific International hotel-casino in Garapan.
