It's been one year since my fiasco in Guam. I am still owed back pay for a prevailing wage job building the naval barracks on Guam. I was cheated out of an additional $15/hour for 50 hours per week for 2 months. Here is the history:
I met Bob Whitaker, the owner of Whitaker Construction during the summer of 2009 and did a few jobs for him, for which I was paid promptly.in early he approached me about a job he was doing on the Navy base for Hansell Phelps and needed someone who knew what he was doing to run the job. He offered the job to me at a handsome salary, paid housing and paid for my plane ticket to Guam and met with my wife and me to discuss the particulars before I left. At no time did he indicate any reservations to me. My wife was planning on joining me in a few months.
After I got to Guam and we started the job, it became obvious that his son, Ben Whitaker was taking over to run the job and I was to be just labor. That would have been fine, if they paid me the wage of $40/hr for which I flew all the way to Guam to get paid. I called Bob and made sure I would be paid the wage I was promised and that taxes were going to be taken care of and reported to the government of Guam or the US, which ever applied. He assured me that it would be just fine.
When I received my first check, I was paid $15/hour less that I was promised and no taxes were taken out of my check. I asked Ben, who indicated that this is the salary I was being paid, this is the way it is and if I don't like it, go back to the States, in a snide, snotty manner. I called Bob, supposedly the 'boss', who said that Ben decided that he wanted to run the job and that it's a family business and that's the way it was. Unfortunately, no one there liked or respected Ben, the General or the workers, and he had to continually ask me questions on the the method for constructing the building.
First of all, they misrepresented themselves to get me to Guam and secondly they were not deducting Federal income taxes. After repeated attemps, it took a few days for them to email me a 'paystub' for my first check to even discover that I was being cheated.
I feel betrayed by Ben and Bob Whitaker and since this a government sub-contract with Hansell Phelps, you'd think that they would have to pay their workers government prevailing wage which is $40 per hour.
This was not fair. I was thousands of miles away from my family and stuck on a job for which I am not being paid what I was promised. Luckily my wife was able to find me work in Oregon and I only had to deal with their bullsh*t for 2 months. I got notified that I got the job in Eugene. And within 2 days, I was on a plane out of there.
I was supposed to have a vehicle to drive on the island, but the truck they had for me only ran for a week. I had to walk 2 miles to the store to get groceries. I was stuck at the house, without a vehicle for many weeks.
I was supposed to have a furnished house during my stay there. The house I was assigned to had no furniture, dishes or cookware. I had to build my own bed out of 2x4's and use an air mattress to sleep on. I used a cut down milk carton for a bowl and went to fast food places for glasses and eating utensils. I bought some basic cookware at KMart, so I could actually cook some food. It was ridiculous what I had to endure working for those creeps.
I have a feeling that Ben calculated the bonus he would make from the General Contractor, by keeping his labor cost down, lying about what he was paying his workers, and submitting inflated numbers to keep the profits for himself.
Be careful if you take a job with Whitaker Construction. Make sure you get a written contract, because I based my future on a handshake, which I considered honorable, but discovered that their word is not truthful.
The country is beautiful, and I enjoyed all the people of Guam, the sights and the food, with the exception of having to work with Ben, who didn't know what the hell he was doing.
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