got this note in the mail. didn't hear about junior foreign minister e ahamed getting upset about all this. oh, forgot, there are no mohammedans involved, and ahamed is really minister for worldwide mohammedan welfare.
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Hundreds of guest workers from India, lured by false promises of permanent U.S. residency, paid tens of thousands of dollars each to obtain temporary jobs at Gulf Coast shipyards only to find themselves forced into involuntary servitude and living in overcrowded, guarded labor camps, according to a class action lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The lawsuit charges that Signal International LLC and a network of recruiters and labor brokers engineered a scheme to defraud the workers and force them to work against their will in Signal facilities in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and Orange, Texas. Several of the workers were illegally detained by company security guards during a pre-dawn raid of their quarters after they began organizing other workers to complain about abuses they faced.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, the complaint claims defendants engaged in forced labor, human trafficking, fraud, racketeering and civil rights violations. Signal is a marine and fabrication company with shipyards in Mississippi and Texas. It is a subcontractor for global defense company Northrop Grumman Corp.
After Hurricane Katrina scattered its workforce, Signal used the federal H-2B guest worker program to import employees to work as welders, pipe fitters, ship fitters and in other positions. Hundreds of Indian men mortgaged their futures in late 2006 to pay recruiters as much as $20,000 for travel, visa and other fees after they were told it would lead to good jobs, green cards and permanent U.S. residency.
Many of the workers gave up other jobs and sold their houses, family farms, jewelry and other valuables to come up with the money. Some took out high-interest loans. Many were also told that for an extra $1,500-per person fee, they could bring their families to live in the United States.
When the men arrived in early 2007, they discovered they wouldn't receive the green cards as promised but only 10-month, H-2B guest worker visas. They were forced to pay $1,050 a month to live in crowded company housing in isolated, fenced labor camps where as many as 24 men shared a trailer with only two toilets. When they tried to find their own housing, Signal officials told them they would still have the rent deducted from their paychecks.
The camps were miles from the nearest shopping areas, places of worship and residential neighborhoods. With the exception of rare occasions, such as Christmas, visitors were not allowed into the camps, which were enclosed by fences. Company employees regularly searched the workers' belongings.
"This company and its recruiters exploited foreign workers who legally entered the country under the belief that they were going to be able to live the American dream," said Mary Bauer, director of the SPLC's Immigrant Justice Project. "Instead, they found themselves chained to an abusive employer, forced to live in a substandard labor camp and threatened with ruin if they tried to stand up for their rights. This case illustrates everything that's wrong with our guest worker program."
When the workers complained about the conditions, they faced were threatened with deportation.
By March 9, 2007, the workers had started organizing. Signal responded with an early-morning raid by armed guards on the labor camp in Pascagoula, Miss. Three of the organizers were locked in a room for hours. They were told they would be fired and deported.
Sabulal Vijayan, who sold his wife's jewelry and borrowed from friends to build a better life in America, slit his wrist in desperation. He recovered after being hospitalized. The incident prompted hundreds of workers to strike. Signal fired the organizers.
On March 6, 100 of the workers in Pascagoula reported themselves to the U.S. Department of Justice as victims of and witnesses to human trafficking. They demanded federal prosecution of Signal.
"These workers endured horrific conditions no company would dream of forcing their local workers to endure," said Kristi Graunke, the SPLC attorney leading the case. "Yet, there are companies that believe they can get away with treating guestworkers like animals and denying their rights because they are a captive workforce."
This litigation arose out of a broader organizing campaign spearheaded by the Alliance for Guest Workers for Dignity, a project of the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice. The legal team also includes Tushar Sheth of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and New Orleans attorney Tracie L. Washington of the Louisiana Justice Institute.
The 82-page complaint claims the defendants violated their rights besides violating nine federal laws. It claims they violated Trafficking Victims Protection Act by having both forced labor and trafficking. They also claim violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the Klu Klux Klan Act of 1871, fraud, breach of contract, violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and false imprisonment, assault and batter and infliction of emotional harm.
In India, the government suspended licenses of two Mumbai-based recruiting firms hiring Indian workers for Signal International, accused of ill-treating workers in Mississippi. Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs, Vayalar Ravi said, "Licenses of Dewan Consultants and S Mansur & Company have been suspended. The report of Indian ambassador in the US is expected in two days time".
The Ministry has issued show-cause notices to both the firms, asking, "why action should not be taken against them for charging money from innocent people to illegally send them abroad to work in inhuman conditions and also for enticing them with the promise of green cards", sources said.
In the meanwhile, the plight of Indian workers in Mississippi has caught the eye of American politicians. George Miller, a respected US Congressman who chairs the House Education and Labor Committee, has sought information from the Bush administration on allegations that several hundred Indians working in shipyards in Mississippi and Texas have been subjected to torture and human trafficking.
In a letter sent on Tuesday to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, Congressman Miller requested copies of reports from departmental investigations of Signal International, the workers' employer.
A delegation of Indian guest workers from the Alliance of Guest workers for Dignity has demanded a meeting with Indian Ambassador to the United States Ronen Sen. The delegation handed over the letter to diplomats K.P. Pillai and Alok Pandey, dispatched to New Orleans by Ambassador Sen.
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