Indian Workers Say They’re Treated Like Slaves at Mississippi Shipyard

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/03/22/indian-workers-say-they-are-treated-like-slaves-at-mississippi-shipyard/

by James Parks, Mar 22, 2008

The global union movement is calling on the U.S. and Indian governments to take legal action against Signal International, a marine construction company, and two of its recruiters. Nearly 100 Indian workers say they were enticed to come to work at the company’s shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., where they say they were held in modern-day slavery.

On March 18, these workers embarked on a “satyagrahah,” or truth action, in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi, traveling from New Orleans to Washington, D.C., to reveal the truth of the guest worker program–that the program is being used to sanction forced labor by migrants and to further disenfranchise the most vulnerable American workers. As part of their journey, workers will also meet with allies from the African American and labor rights communities in key sites in the civil rights struggle, including Jackson, Miss.; Selma, Ala.; Atlanta; and Greensboro, N.C.



The same day, Sharan Burrow, president of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), wrote to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, saying American and Indian recruiters promised the Indian pipe fitters and welders decent work, as well as “green cards” for the workers and their families, but:

their preconceived American Dream turned out to be a nightmare.

The ITUC represents 168 million workers in 155 countries. The AFL-CIO is a longtime member of the ITUC. Click here to read the letter.

Some 100 workers quit and staged a protest at the shipyard on March 10 demanding justice. Last week, the former workers, who are now living in New Orleans, filed a lawsuit against Signal, claiming some 500 immigrant workers were subjected to forced labor and poor living conditions at the company’s facilities in Pascagoula and Orange, Texas. The protestors say they lived “like pigs in a cage” in a “work camp” and Signal forced them to live in substandard housing with 24 men crammed into a small room for which they each were charged more than $1,000 a month.

The workers sang the protest song “We Shall Overcome” in their native language and symbolically threw their hard hats at the company gates as they walked out. They accused the company of illegal “human trafficking.” They say the recruiters brought them to the United States by promising permanent residency in exchange for a $20,000 fee. Instead, they said they were given a 10-month work visa. Many of them sold all their possessions or borrowed money at exorbitant interest rates from loan sharks to finance the trip.

FULL story at link.