K.P. Nayar
Washington, March 7:
About 100 Indian workers have taken the lead in highlighting the
pathetic conditions under which migrant labourers toil to rebuild
hurricane-ravaged areas in America’s Gulf Coast.
In a rare incident of its kind, they walked off their jobs at a
shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, this week and are approaching the
US department of justice accusing their employers, Signal International
LLC, of illegal trafficking in humans.
The company recruited more than 500 workers from India for the
reconstruction of areas damaged by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.
About 100,000 migrant workers, mostly Hispanic, black and Asian, have
been brought to Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas after the devastating
hurricanes for rebuilding work, which regular American workers will not
do.
Migrant labourers can be employed cheaply by companies on the Gulf
Coast, many of which have profited immensely from the largely chaotic
and poorly supervised relief and reconstruction efforts.
What is shocking about this situation is that the Indian embassy here
has given $5 million (Rs 20 crores) for hurricane relief to the
Americans, but is now unable to prevent the exploitation of Indian
workers by companies which may be profiting from some of that Indian
money.
Discontent over allegedly broken promises by employers and mistreatment
has been growing among Indian labourers for some time. Last year,
Sabulal Vijayan, one Indian labourer slit his wrists and tried to
commit suicide.
“There was no other option for me,” Vijayan told reporters who visited
the striking workers yesterday.
“The situation forced me to do so. Signal was retaliating against me
for organising my people for our rights,” he said.
The New Orleans Worker Justice Coalition, an alliance of organisations
which have come together for creating worker empowerment, is assisting
the striking workers to navigate the maze of rules that will ensure
that these aliens are not breaking any laws. Under US laws, the
striking workers may be allowed to stay in the country if they became
witnesses in a federal investigation.
At a news conference conducted through an interpreter from the
coalition, some of the workers told tales of how they had pawned
jewellery and sold property to pay as much as $20,000 (Rs 8 lakhs) to
recruiters in pursuit of the American dream.
The workers said they were promised green cards but were instead given
H2B work visas of only 10 months duration. Upon arrival in Pascagoula,
they were put up 24 people to a room, for which the employers deducted
$1,050 (Rs 42,572) a month from their salaries, it was alleged.
Saket Soni, the interpreter, was quoted in the Mississippi media as
saying: “I have never seen these kinds of conditions... It was
impossible to sleep in such a prison. For 24 people, there were two
toilets and four showers.”
The Coalition has confirmed that across New Orleans, the devastation of
which captured world attention, “workers are living in abandoned cars,
working in toxic conditions, chasing after a web of sub-contractors for
their wages, and running from police and immigration authorities who
have intensified their enforcement efforts while labour law enforcement
is lax”. A year ago some workers protested against living conditions at
the Pascagoula site and an investigation by authorities was conducted
in its wake.
Signal said its facilities were then inspected by the department of
labour and other agencies which found the company to be “fully
compliant”.
Yesterday the company claimed in a press release that it had spent $7
million to construct “state of the art housing complexes” for its
workers. “Signal conducts all its operations to the highest standards
and in full compliance with the law,” the press release said.
“Signal recruited over 500 workers, believing that this would be a
win-win both for Signal and the workers.
“Signal would increase its number of skilled workers... by providing
them with good jobs that would pay them above the prevailing wages for
their skills and significantly greater wages than they could earn in
their home country,” the release added.
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