Achieving Justice for Forced Labor Victims in Saipan

Aaron Halegua, Principal - Aaron Halegua, PLLC

Seven Chinese construction workers won over $5.9 million for their physical and emotional suffering.

In the summer of 2016, Han Dong was living with his parents and younger brother in northeastern China, where he earned roughly $10,000 per year as a construction worker. He struggled to pay for his diabetic mother’s weekly dialysis appointments and his young son’s school fees. Thus, when a labor agency told him that he could earn $25,000 per year working in the United States for a large Chinese construction company, Mr. Han signed the contract and agreed to pay the agent’s $7500 fee. Since he lacked the cash, however, Mr. Han borrowed the money from a local loan shark, pledging his house as collateral.

The year prior, construction of the Chinese-owned Imperial Pacific International (IPI) hotel and casino had commenced on the island of Saipan—a U.S. possession in the Pacific Ocean. IPI hired numerous Chinese construction firms to build the project—including the state-owned Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC) and publicly-listed Suzhou Gold Mantis. However, there were not enough work visas for the more than 2000 Chinese construction workers that these firms would employ. Instead, the casino and construction firms arranged for the workers to enter as “tourists” and work without proper authorization.  

Han was one such worker. Only when he arrived at the Saipan airport did he discover that he lacked a valid work visa. Han was then taken to an unairconditioned barracks where he shared a room with 20 other men. Han’s supervisors confiscated his passport. He and the others were then compelled to work over 12 hours per day in Saipan’s hot sun. There were no rest days. The workers were not paid the amounts promised in China, and sometimes not paid at all. The food was sometimes rotten and the portions inadequate. But Han and his coworkers remained silent because the supervisors promised to have them deported or even killed if they complained.

The Imperial Pacific International (IPI) hotel and casino sure looked nice on the outside, but inside was another story.

The IPI worksite was also extremely dangerous. No safety training was provided and the protective equipment was inadequate. Doctors at the local hospital recorded over 80 serious injuries on the site in just 10 months—not including the large number of undocumented workers who the companies forbade to see a doctor. Han’s finger was crushed by a heavy metal pipe that was not properly secured. He was forced to return to work the next day.

Indeed, the forced labor scheme at the IPI site only came to an end when a “tourist” worker fell from the casino’s scaffolding and died, which prompted the FBI to raid the construction firms’ offices and arrest the managers. Working with advocates like myself, the federal authorities returned the workers’ passports and recovered nearly $14 million in backwages and recruitment fees for 2400 workers. However, Han and the other injured workers still had not received any compensation for their injuries.

In order to address this injustice, I teamed up with Bruce Berline, a Saipan attorney, to seek compensation on behalf of Han and six other Chinese workers who had also suffered injuries on the IPI site. We sued the construction firms, MCC and Gold Mantis, as well as the developer, IPI, in federal court for subjecting our clients to forced labor, which then caused their physical injuries and other harm. We obtained a $50,000 grant from the Impact Fund to take on these large, well-resourced defendants.

After three years of litigation, we reached settlements with MCC and Gold Mantis. The court then entered a default judgment for $5.9 million against IPI, calling IPI’s mistreatment of the workers “appalling” and noting that “IPI was the driving force” behind the "egregious conditions" faced by the plaintiffs. After we threatened to auction IPI’s gaming equipment and real estate, IPI paid this judgment in its entirety, plus our attorneys’ fees.

Migrant workers paid exorbitant recruitment fees and then found themselves in forced labor conditions.

This litigation had a life-changing impact on our clients. For instance, prior to the settlement, plaintiff Meng Yongjun went abroad each year to earn $900 per month doing construction work, but still struggled to support his family. He now has paid back the loan sharks who lent him money to work in Saipan and has built new homes for his three children. Wang Tianming was only 27 years old when his leg was engulfed by fire on the IPI site. Upon returning to China, he was living with his parents, unable to work or provide for his daughter. Seeing his elderly father perform construction work while he was immobilized at home caused him immense shame. But, after the settlement, Wang repaid his debts, purchased his own house, bought a car so that he can get around his town, and now he is the one supporting his daughter and parents.

In the case of Han, he could no longer do construction work after his injury and so he was working as a janitor for $150 per month, leaving him further in debt. He has now repaid the loan sharks, hired a tutor for his son, and pays for his father’s caretaker and mother’s dialysis. In reflecting on how he no longer worries about expenses, he remarked that, “I never imagined that our family could experience this feeling.”

Yet, the transformation amongst these clients was not only economic. When I first met these workers in Saipan, they were terrified of their employers, afraid to complain, and felt utterly disenfranchised. After learning of their legal rights, they protested in the streets of Saipan for their wages and told federal authorities that they would not return to China until they were paid. The mere act of bringing this forced labor against very powerful, well-connected defendants is itself an act of incredible courage. And the plaintiffs’ willingness to persist with the litigation after returning to China—where they were harassed and threatened to drop the lawsuit—is further testament to their bravery. 

UPDATE 06.21.23:

Aaron’s blog post above details how Imperial Pacific participated in a forced labor and human trafficking scheme to find Chinese immigrants to build its casino. A pending class action lawsuit alleges that Imperial Pacific next hired construction workers from a variety of countries, but discriminated against the Turkish workers by paying them less than Taiwanese and Italian workers in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.