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South Asian immigrants protest ‘modern slavery’

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.