‘If we go home now, we’ll die’: Chinese couple in Saipan back-pay row vow to fight on despite US labour deal
Husband and wife from rural Liaoning province say they can’t return without enough money to pay back loan sharks
Five Chinese construction workers stranded by a pay dispute on the US-administered Pacific island of Saipan have vowed to fight on for more compensation after US authorities announced a US$14 million settlement in the case.
Most of the roughly 2,400 Chinese workers owed back pay over a multibillion-dollar casino-hotel building project have returned home but Xu Longcai, 51, and his wife Niu Xinru, 45, said on Tuesday they would not feel safe going back to their hometown in Liaoning province without adequate compensation to pay loan sharks.
Like other workers, Xu and Niu were lured more than a year ago to Saipan in the US Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands on false promises of good wages.
In December, a number of the workers told the South China Morning Post that they had to pay a hefty upfront “recruitment” fee to agents in China, and once they arrived in Saipan, had to work long hours at below legal US minimum wage with no holiday.
They mounted a series of protests but many of those owed money could not wait for a settlement and went home.