Propst: “No passports, no money”
Some 50 construction workers staged a public protest on the Pacific island of Saipan April 14, saying they had not been paid by their employer, MCC International Saipan.
MCC, a unit of the Chinese state-owned Metallurgical Corp., is one of several contractors working to build the Imperial Pacific casino resort on the U.S.-controlled island territory. The resort is a project of Hong Kong-listed Imperial Pacific International.
MCC has been accused of illegally hiring Chinese workers without visas, Reuters reported. One protest banner read, “MCC, return my hard-earned money.” But local legislator Ed Propst responded by saying, “No passports. No work. No money.”
On April 3, both MCC and Beilida Overseas Ltd. were charged by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation with illegally importing and employing Chinese workers. Saipan is part of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, which been controlled by the U.S. since the mid-1940s.
Imperial Pacific, which has been plagued by other problems including suggestions of money laundering and shaky financials was quick to distance itself from the latest uproar, and told Reuters it “does not condone the hiring and/or employment of individuals by illegal means. Imperial Pacific International is emphatic in its request to all of its contractors and subcontractors to follow all local and federal labor and immigration laws and regulations in the conduct of its business, including and in particular, the hiring of construction workers.”
The FBI investigated the work site after the death of a construction worker in March. A raid in April found a list of more than 150 undocumented workers. Imperial Pacific told Reuters it paid construction contractors “requisite fees for processing needed applications for workers to work on the construction problems.”
More than 100 injuries have taken place among the work crews in the last year, “from fractures to crushings,” volunteers on the scene told Reuters.
