H-2B Oil Riggers from India protest in DC
H-2B Oil Riggers from India protest in DC
Date: Wednesday, July 30, 2008 11:14 PM
<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1897 -- 7/30/2008 >>>>>
A group of Indians that came to the U.S. on H-2B visas is raising a big stink
in Washington DC. In addition to protesting, they filed a federal lawsuit in
Louisiana against Signal International Corp. and several recruiting agents.
They claim that they were cheated because recruiters for Signal promised them
green cards if they go to the U.S. to work on oil rigs. They never worked on
oil rigs however -- instead they were sent to a dingy shipyard and were only
given H-2B visas. It was all a con job because H-2B visas don't give a path to
citizenship. In contrast H-1B offers a path to citizenship called "dual
intent".
The angry Indians probably did get seriously ripped off, at least if what they
allege is true. What doesn't strike me as fair is that these Indians, who
either willingly or through ignorance, cheated Americans out of good paying
jobs, have asked the Justice Department for permission to remain in the United
States, even though the H-2B program stipulates that the holders of the visas
must remain employed to stay here. They want to be allowed to live and work in
the U.S. while their court case is pending, which could take years.
Of course I'm sure the DOJ will give them permission to stay since that is the
politically correct thing to do.
Wouldn't you know it, but shortly after the scandal got publicity demagogues
like Labor Secretary Elaine Chao started bloviating about the need to "reform"
the H-2B program. Anytime Chao wants to reform a guest worker program you
should be suspicious, and this time is no different!
Here are a few of the things that Elaine Chao proposes to improve the H-2B
program:
* Cut down bureaucratic delays so that H-2B visas can be approved faster,
which means employers won't have to wait as long to get their indentured
laborers. She proposes to do this by reducing the time to review applications,
which of course will make things much easier for the fraudsters.
* Use electronic filing for H-2B in order to take state employment agencies
out of the review and decision making process. The feds at the DOL will be in
complete control. Chao figures this system has worked out so well for H-1B it
should be used for H-2B.
* Allowing shipyards and construction firms to bring workers in for three
years instead of the usual 10 month period that H-2B allows. Guess what kind
of companies those Indian H-1Bs worked for -- a SHIPYARD!
What Chao is really proposing is a de-facto increase in the number of H-2Bs
that are allowed into the U.S. at any given time. Her proposal has an eerie
resemblance to the way the DHS is attempting to extend OPT by using
bureaucratic fiat instead of asking Congress to use their constitutionally
mandated power to regulate immigration.
It may sound unbelievable that Chao would suggest such things when a scandal
of this magnitude is brewing, but there have been many others involving H-2B.
Don't worry though, because Chao claims that she will concoct regulations that
will make it tougher for unscrupulous companies to exploit their imported
labor.
To read a DOL press release go here, but read carefully because there is
plenty of obscuration.
http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/eta/eta20080709.htm
ETA News Release: [05/22/2008]
U.S. Department of Labor proposes rules to modernize and increase protections
under H-2B program
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/11/AR2008061103445.html
Indian Workers Decry Recruitment Tactics Protesters Cite 'Lifetime Settlement'
Offer
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 12, 2008; A12
Vijay Kumar was working as a contract welder in the sweltering United Arab
Emirates two years ago, far from his wife and family in southern India, when
he spotted an advertisement offering welders and pipe fitters "permanent
lifetime settlement in the USA for self and family."
Kumar answered the ad to find that workers were being recruited to rebuild oil
rigs in Mississippi and Texas destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. He returned to
India, signed a contract and paid a recruiter $20,000 to travel to the United
States. He told his wife, who had just given birth to a son, that he would
send for them as soon as he could.
"I sell my house, my wife sell her jewels, we borrow money from friends. We
dream of living in America together," Kumar, 34, said yesterday. He stood
outside the U.S. Justice Department during a protest with several dozen other
Indian workers, all of whom have been staging a hunger strike in Washington
for weeks.
When about 500 Indian recruits reached Mississippi in the fall of 2006, Kumar
and the others said, they found that they had been deceived. Their new
employer, Signal International Corp., had hired them as temporary "guest"
workers with 10-month H2B visas. There was no possibility of obtaining
permanent residency for themselves, let alone their families back home. Signal
denies that it knew the workers had been promised U.S.
residency.
With support from the AFL-CIO, law firms and advocacy groups, more than 100 of
the recruited Indians have filed a federal lawsuit in Louisiana against Signal
and several recruiting agents, under a federal law that prohibits "human
trafficking" by fraud or force for labor or services.
The group also asked for a Justice Department investigation and for permission
to remain in the United States, even though they are no longer employed here,
while their court case is pending. Some of the workers, who quit Signal in
March and made their way to Washington, have staged an intermittent hunger
strike outside the Embassy of India to draw attention to their case. Eighteen
members of Congress have signed a letter to Attorney General Michael B.
Mukasey on their behalf.
In addition to the hiring process, the workers complained about their
treatment in the United States. They said they were squeezed into crowded bunk
rooms with too few toilets, given bad food and little freedom to leave the
work site and had to labor in hot and dirty conditions, cleaning and repairing
the damaged oil rigs.
"None of the promises were kept," said Shivan Raghavan, 45, another Indian
worker at yesterday's protest, who said he paid the recruiter an additional
$4,500 to send later for his wife and two children. "The work was dirty and
dangerous. There was little air, and it was hard to breathe. When we
complained, we were told we could be deported.
"We were cheated, and we want justice," he said.
Signal International officials said yesterday that they had been shocked to
learn that recruiters had lured the foreign workers with false offers of
permanent immigration, and that Signal had played no part in that process.
They also said the living arrangements they offered at their U.S.
operations were not only of good quality but also tailored to the needs and
tastes of South Asian immigrant workers.
"The company was incredibly angry when we found the recruiters had misled
people and charged them outrageous fees to come over. Signal feels betrayed by
the recruiters, and to an extent betrayed by the workers for making false
allegations," said Erin Casey Hangartner, counsel for Signal, in a telephone
interview from Mississippi.
She said she did not know whether Signal officials knew of the deceptive
advertisements, only that "we did not fully understand the green card process.
We acted in good faith at every turn." She also said Signal has entered the
Indians' lawsuit as a plaintiff, accusing several recruiters in India and the
United States of hiring workers under fraudulent conditions.
Attempts were made to reach lawyers at an immigration law firm in New Orleans
that allegedly acted as a central conduit in the recruitments. An assistant at
the firm said the lawyers would have no public comment.
Documents filed in the federal lawsuit show numerous large checks from
recruiters in India paid to the firm, plus receipts. Some are marked, "H2B
visa and employment based permanent residence visas for USA."
Hangartner defended Signal's treatment of the workers, saying the company
built them living quarters with Internet access, billiard tables, laundry
service, meals provided by an Indian caterer and free shuttles to the nearest
towns. She said that the protesting workers received the same pay and benefits
as the others and that a number of Indian immigrants are still happily
employed there.
According to labor and political groups helping the Indians, the case was an
important example of illegal human trafficking, abetted by the complex rules
governing the U.S. guest worker program and exacerbated by the urgent and
chaotic conditions that characterized the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
"These workers came to help rebuild the Gulf, and on arrival their nightmare
began," Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ill.) said at yesterday's protest. "We
recognize that modern-day slavery exists, but the U.S.
Congress has passed laws that protect the victims. We have faith in the U.S.
system of justice, and we believe these workers should place their faith in
the U.S. system of justice, too."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_3550
Shipyard workers organize to stop 21st century slavery
11 March 2008 PASCAGOULA, Miss. - More than 100 workers, carrying signs
reading "I Am A Man," walked off the job at a Mississippi shipyard last week
to protest conditions of slavery. Their struggle for justice comes 40 years
after the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., marched with striking Memphis
sanitation workers carrying the same signs.
The shipyard workers -- who are from India -- have filed a class action suit
against Signal International, a marine fabrication company; recruiters in
India and the United States; and a New Orleans immigration lawyer, Malvern
Burnett; accusing them of forced labor, human trafficking, fraud and civil
rights violations.
The suit charges that in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, more than 500
Indian men "were trafficked into the United States through the federal
government's H-2B guestworker program to provide labor and services . . .
Plaintiffs were subjected to forced labor as welders, pipefitters,
shipfitters, and other marine fabrication workers at Signal operations in
Pascagoula, Mississippi and Orange, Texas."
At the walkout last Thursday, the workers symbolically threw their hardhats
over the fence as they left the shipyard, media reported, and sang the civil
rights anthem, "We Shall Overcome."
Immigrant workers exploited in a Mississippi shipyard walk off the job. In a
scene reminiscent of the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers' strike, they carried
signs reading, "I Am A Man." Workers then tossed their hardhats over a fence
in jubilation.
Photos from www.sajaforum.com
Saket Soni of the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice, who served
as an interpreter for the workers, said they talk of living "like pigs in a
cage" in a company-run "work camp."
One of the workers, Sabulal Vijayan, tried to organize his fellow workers last
year and was fired. He then attempted suicide.
The exploitation began in 2006 when recruiters in New Orleans and Bombay,
together with Signal, a Northrop Grumman subcontractor, used the post-Katrina
labor shortage in the Gulf Coast to create a trafficking racket within the
guest worker program that President Bush wants to expand, the Workers Center
said in a news release. Workers paid up to $20,000 to get jobs in the United
States.
"They promised us green cards and permanent residency, and instead gave us 10-
month visas and made us live like animals in company trailers, 24 to a room,"
Vijayan said. "We were trapped between an ocean of debt at home and constant
threats of deportation from our bosses in Mississippi."
When the workers began to organize last year, Signal sent armed guards to
detain and fire the organizers, the Workers Center said.
The lawsuit, filed by the Louisiana Justice Institute, Southern Poverty Law
Center and the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, charges
violations of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act; the
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act ("RICO"); the Civil Rights
Act of 1866; the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871; and the Fair Labor Standards Act.
"The U.S. State Department calls it 'a repulsive crime' when recruiters and
employers in other parts of the world bind guest workers with crushing debts
and threats of deportation," said Soni. "This is precisely what is happening
on the Gulf Coast."
The lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages and injunctions to prevent
future exploitation of workers. While the court action moves forward, the
workers pledge to continue more demonstrations to call attention to the
treatment of workers on the Gulf Coast.
This report is adapted from information on www.Sajaforum.org, the blog of the
South Asian journalists association, and www.Sepiamutiny.com.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.workers.org/2008/us/immigrants_0410/
South Asian immigrants protest modern slavery By Dianne Mathiowetz Atlanta
Published Apr 6, 2008 11:53 PM
In a courageous action that made international news on March 6, some 100 guest
workers from India walked off their jobs at a Pascagoula, Miss., shipyard,
charging they were being treated as modern-day slaves.
Recruited largely from Mombai (Bombay) in India to work as pipe fitters and
welders in Mississippi and Texas, the workers say they were promised "green
cards" or permanent residency in the U.S. for themselves and their families as
well as decent wages and working conditions.
Instead, after paying $15,000-$20,000 to the recruiting companies, they were
given 10-month H2B guest worker visas, confined in a labor camp, housed 24
people to a trailer, forced to pay over $1000 a month for their housing and
food, threatened with deportation if they complained, and had their legal
documents withheld from them.
Pictures of the striking workers with their signs declaring "I Am A Man"
and "Dignity," evoking the demands of the Memphis sanitation workers strike
supported by Dr. Martin Luther King some 40 years ago, were printed in
newspapers around the world.
With the support of the New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice, these
immigrants very quickly launched "a journey for justice" from New Orleans to
Washington, D.C., to further spread their story of mistreatment and deception
at the hands of Signal International, a subcontractor for the giant
corporation, Northrop Grumman.
This "satyagrahah" or truth action began March 18 and took the marchers to
several of the cities where historic events in the U.S. civil rights movement
took place.
In Jackson, Miss.; Selma, Ala.; Atlanta, Ga.; and Greensboro, N.C., the
workers held news conferences with supporters from civil rights, labor and
community organizations that expressed their solidarity with these immigrants
and condemned the corporations that profit off human trafficking.
Despite the intimidating presence of U.S. immigration agents and other police
who kept surveillance on them during their 9-day march, the strikers
successfully reached D.C. intent upon meeting with the Indian ambassador,
Ronen Sen, and bringing their testimony to the U.S. Congress about the abuses
of the H2B guest worker program.
On March 27, the workers crowded into the Indian Embassy where for three hours
they passionately pressed Ambassador Sen to advocate on their behalf.
While Sen offered little in the way of concrete action to correct the inhuman
treatment practiced under the cover of this government sanctioned program, the
workers once again had reason to be proud of their strong stand for dignity.
During the remainder of their stay in D.C., they plan to hold public rallies
and events, as well as meet with members of Congress about legislation being
pushed by the Bush administration to expand the guest worker program.
As a result of their determination to prevent any other worker from enduring
such treatment, the Department of Justice has opened a human trafficking
investigation into Signal s use of the H2B program and a class-action lawsuit
has also been filed against the company.
Previously, other foreign workers brought into the hurricane-ravaged areas of
the Gulf Coast to do cleanup and construction, pick crops and work in hotels
have similarly charged that they were lied to and abused under the guest
worker program.
For more information, go to www.neworleansworkerjustice.org.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/22/nation/na-immigration22
New temporary worker visa procedures to cut bureaucracy By Nicole Gaouette May
22, 2008
With restaurants and resorts facing summer staff shortages, the Bush
administration will announce federal regulations today to streamline the way
foreign workers enter the country for seasonal jobs.
The Department of Labor is rewriting rules to help employers find and hire
workers for temporary jobs as landscapers, waitresses and crab pickers more
quickly and efficiently than current guidelines allow.
In one major change affecting industries such as construction and shipyards,
the definition of "temporary" will be drastically expanded -- from the current
10 months to three years.
Adjusting the so-called H2B visa program is part of an ongoing administration
effort to reconfigure immigration laws on a piecemeal basis in the absence of
a comprehensive overhaul.
Last year, an attempt to remake the nation s immigration laws collapsed in
Congress amid conservative anger over proposals to grant legal status to many
illegal immigrants currently in the country.
A frustrated President Bush, who had favored the overhaul, responded with a
28-point plan to tighten enforcement at the border and in the workplace --
moves largely meant to placate conservative Republicans. That has led to more
aggressive immigration raids and an even greater shortage of workers.
But in an effort to aid businesses, Bush also outlined plans to simplify
existing visa programs for foreign farmworkers, highly skilled professionals
and the short-term workers from all over the world who enter the country with
H2B visas.
There are limits, however, to the administration s ability to change the
seasonal visa program, especially in one crucial area: the number of visas
available.
Employers consider the 66,000 new visas offered every year to be woefully
inadequate, and efforts to expand the H2B visa program have been stymied in
Congress. So federal officials hope that by smoothing out the procedures, some
of the difficulties businesses are having in filling jobs with foreign workers
will be eased.
Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said in an interview with The Times that the
changes being announced today would cut down bureaucratic delays.
"Use of the program has increased in recent years, but duplicative
requirements have -- [meant] employers have failed to get workers in a timely
fashion," Chao said.
And allowing shipyards and construction firms to bring workers in for three
years, Chao said, would help those industries remain competitive in a global
market.
"Sometimes temporary work is not confined to one year," she said.
The new rules also are meant to protect American workers, she said. Foreign
workers will have to reapply annually and labor markets will be tested yearly
to ensure there are no able and available U.S. workers for the jobs, Chao
explained.
"We re trying to be very judicious and make sure we are doing this in a
careful way," she said.
But critics who would like to see tighter restrictions on immigration argue
that the H2B visa program should be shut down.
"The administration is trying in the only way it can to respond to business
pressure," said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration
Studies. He argued that if employers paid high enough wages, Americans would
take these jobs.
"Why do we even have such a program?" Krikorian asked. "Employers are never
satisfied with how cheap labor is."
The seasonal visa program received added negative attention recently when
several Indian workers went on a hunger strike to protest their treatment at a
Mississippi shipyard. One of the H2B workers was hospitalized this week.
For employers like Matt Edmundson, whose Arbor Valley Nursery in Brighton,
Colo., has 21 H2B workers, any changes that simplify the program are welcome.
"It s getting more and more difficult to function," said Edmundson, who
recently began checking all of his job applicants eligibility. "We found less
than 2% of our applicants are eligible to work. Right now, if I didn t have
the H2B laborers that I have this year, I would be in a really big pinch."
Few California employers have used the program partly because of the
bureaucratic requirements, said Kevin Johnson, a law professor at UC Davis who
writes about immigration issues.
"Easing some of the requirements on employers will make it much more likely
that California will use the program," Johnson said. "I think it could have a
sizable impact in the state."
The Department of Labor is proposing to speed the visa process by allowing
employers to file applications directly to the federal government, cutting a
current requirement that applications first go to a state workforce agency.
Employers no longer will have to fill out paperwork showing that they have
complied fully with program requirements. Instead they will be able to attest,
under threat of penalties and fines, that they are complying.
Companies would be barred from passing on any program expenses to workers,
including recruitment costs or attorney s fees. Labor officials will begin an
auditing program to make sure employers are following the rules; those who
don t face fines of as much as $10,000.
Lawmakers have been deadlocked for months over making revisions to the H2B
visa program. A temporary extension had allowed workers already here on H2B
visas to return to their U.S. jobs without being subject to the 66,000 cap.
Since that exemption expired in September, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus
has blocked bipartisan attempts to extend it.
Caucus members argue that piecemeal efforts to deal with immigration make
broad reform less likely.
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) thwarted an attempt Tuesday by Sen. Barbara A.
Mikulski (D-Md.) and Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) to increase the number of H2B
visas.
"The provisions [in the proposed legislation] did everything for business and
nothing for hardworking families," Menendez said. "The sooner the business
community understands that it must join us in promoting relief for families as
well as business, the sooner we will succeed in beginning to reform our broken
immigration system."
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