Gov. Ralph DLG Torres said he didn\u2019t lie at the U.S. Senate hearing last Feb. 6 in Washington, D.C. when asked if there were still unpaid workers on Saipan.<\/p>\n
U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) had asked Torres at the hearing if he knows of any unpaid workers on Saipan, to which he replied that he was unaware of such.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the record, when I testified at the Senate, they asked me if all the employees of Imperial Pacific International are taken cared of. To my knowledge, they are,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know there were five that were not paid. I didn\u2019t lie or I didn\u2019t know about the five [and learned] only [about them] when they came out Thursday. I\u2019m on top of it and I will be calling the U.S. Department of Labor to ask the cases about these workers,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The five workers, part of a group tourists who entered the CNMI illegally, were employees of MCC International, and worked on the Imperial Pacific Resort building in Garapan. The other workers have already gone back to China in the wake of federal indictments against the companies that IPI subcontracted to build its resort.<\/p>\n
In a statement by a representative of the workers, they said it is \u201chard to understand\u201d how Torres does not know about the unpaid workers on Saipan.<\/p>\n
Torres said the reason why the workers are still on Saipan is a federal issue. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what the case or where it is at this point but I will find that out. I want to know who made the offer to these workers\u2014the USDOL or IPI? I don\u2019t know that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are the things that I want to clear out. I will call IPI and ask for an update on what\u2019s going on\u2026I want to find out if USDOL has been notified and know what is the next process,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Torres said it is unacceptable to let an individual work and not get paid.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis scenario is not acceptable… It\u2019s not just Best Sunshine, it is anybody you work for\u2026no matter who they are. If there are other workers out there, then they should come out so we can make sure we take care of it and take care of those allegations,\u201d he said<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter who you are\u2014if you work, then you should get paid. If workers feel that they are being underpaid\u2026then what is the next step? If we need to bring in USDOL to come in, then we should and, if not, I would like to know what\u2019s going on, why are they not here addressing the [issue],\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gov. Ralph DLG Torres said he didn\u2019t lie at the U.S. Senate hearing last Feb….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,14722,12497,8220],"class_list":["post-270501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-imperial-pacific-resort","tag-ipi","tag-usdol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270501\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}