New Orleans: "Tossing their hard hats in the air"

[grandpa]

This story isn't brand new, but it is presumably ongoing:

Not long ago, it was reported that "over a hundred Indian workers
at a shipyard in a small American town on the
Gulf of Mexico lodged a dramatic protest against inhuman living
and working conditions on Thursday, singing 'We Shall Overcome', and
tossing their hard hats in the air."
The workers, hired from India in 2006 "to tide over
a labour shortage in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that
killed over 1,800 on the Gulf coast in August 2005,"
said they were made to live "like pigs in a
cage" in a "work camp" run by their employer, marine
fabrication company Signal International, in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

Signal claims they had "spent over $7 million to construct
state-of-the-art housing complexes for the workers," were
paying Indians "greater wages than that they could earn in
their home country," and that their facilities and labor practices
passed inspection by both the US Department of Labour and
the Federal Immigration and Customs Division.
On the other hand, Saket Soni of the New Orleans
Workers' Center for Racial Justice says the workers were highly
exploited, "trapped between an ocean of debt at home and
constant threats of deportation from our bosses in Mississippi."

(1. Stephen Frost, "Indian workers protest at US plant over treatment 'like pigs,'" Corporate Social repsonsibility in Asia: CSR Asia - Corporate Social Responsibility in Asia)

According to Soni, "Signal is one of hundreds of employers
that, after Katrina, has used the guestworker program to import
cheap labor with the purpose of undercutting wages across the
industry and subjecting workers to extraordinarily exploitative conditions.
The workers of Signal International all borrowed between $14,000 and
$20,000 to come to the United States.
They plunged their families into debt."

(2. "Indian Guestworker Slits Wrists After Being Fired for Complaining About Squalid Work Conditions," -- Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman interview of Saket Soni, March 15, 2007:
Democracy Now! | Indian Guestworker Slits Wrists After Being Fired for Complaining About Squalid Work Conditions)

On a related note, the Southern Poverty Law Center has
sued companies "on behalf of immigrant workers involved in the
reconstruction and cleanup of New Orleans after the storm," saying
immigrant guest workers are "systematically exploited and abused" across the
country.

In the summer of 2006, Hispanic hotel workers sued "a
prominent New Orleans developer" over inadequate pay, and fruit pickers
walked off the job over exploitative conditions.

(3. Adam Nossiter, "Workers Sue Gulf Coast Company That Imported Them," New York Times, March 11, 2008)

Thoughts?

Grandpa h.

[xyzer]

So where is the evidence that these malcontents were forced to stay in the program? $18 bucks an hour for unskilled labor is better than wage minimums? I gather the company gave them a place to live and maybe even meals? Seems to me a few malcontents stirred up some of the rest. Check the hourly wage in India? and factor in the free board.

I say send them back to India if they don't like it. There are many others who will be willing to replace them! Aren't we having a problem preventing illegals from crossing our borders to find work> I don't read of them complaining.

[grandpa]

Quote by: xyzer So where is the evidence that these malcontents were forced to stay in the program? $18 bucks an hour for unskilled labor is better than wage minimums?

The workers were “trapped between an ocean of debt at home and constant threats of deportation from our bosses in Mississippi”,

Xyzer, are you capable of putting yourself in their shoes?

Grandpa h.

[SoylentGreen]

Quote by: xyzer So where is the evidence that these malcontents were forced to stay in the program? .

The usual practice is to debt load them. They pay for being able to sign a work contract . they pay a broker to organise the contract , they pay for air flight, they pay for food and accommodation, transport.
Even before they start work they are already in debt . which leaves them no choice but to stay and work it off.

$18 bucks an hour for unskilled labor is better than wage minimums?

True but then companies that do this also make sure that increasing debt payments reduce that $18 to well below the minimum wage.

I gather the company gave them a place to live and maybe even meals?

You would be gathering wrong. The practice is to make them pay for everything.
One common trick is to force them to use company transport to and from the job. They will use a bus and charge a ridiculously high price for the transport.

Seems to me a few malcontents stirred up some of the rest. Check the hourly wage in India? and factor in the free board.

The board is never free. And of course the wages are lower in india , that's why they come to america on the unfulfilled promise of higher wages.

I say send them back to India if they don't like it.There are many others who will be willing to replace them! Aren't we having a problem preventing illegals from crossing our borders to find work> I don't read of them complaining.

But then the company wouldn't have leverage over their workers and be able to exploit them. And if they were sent back they would still owe the money that was incurred by working there. Do you think the company hired them because they have a soft heart and wanted to see some foreigners benefit.
No the company was looking for a work force that they could exploit so as to increase their profits.

[grandpa]

Quote by: SoylentGreen The usual practice is to debt load them. They pay for being able to sign a work contract .....

You hit the nail on the head in your description (I thought the article already did that -- but apparently everything apparently must be spelled out).

These programs aren't very difficult to get off the ground. The poor are exploited in such ways throughout the world. And, of course, capitalist ideologues will defend the practice and blame the victims.

Grandpa h.

[Gods_Mercenary]

Well, no one forced you to get in bed with obvious exploiters, but the practice of making someone work for you through debt is as old as money itself.

[grandpa]

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary Well, no one forced you to get in bed with obvious exploiters, but the practice of making someone work for you through debt is as old as money itself.

Money isn't something you really need to get by -- except when you have elite groups controlling resources.

Grandpa h.

[Gods_Mercenary]

True, you could farm yourself, but someone else owns the farmland, so money might be necessary.

[grandpa]

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary True, you could farm yourself, but someone else owns the farmland, so money might be necessary.

That is IF somebody else owns the farmland. But, unfortunately, there is this conception that freedom from rent and property taxes would "harm" another person. Somehow it's a foolish idea.

But of course, my previous point wasn't be only about food production. Freedom needn't only apply in more rural areas.

Grandpa h.

[Gods_Mercenary]

Well. if no one owns the farmland, then I suppose you might as well farm it, but in most places, there's not much free growing space.

[SoylentGreen]

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary Well, no one forced you to get in bed with obvious exploiters, but the practice of making someone work for you through debt is as old as money itself.

No one forced them true. But then I would be surprised if the company openly revealed that it was going to put them in so much debt that they could not survive. Instead I would believe the company made many promises and then didn't keep them.
The workers believed they could work and make money. They came to the usa and fulfilled their part of the contact and it is definitely the company who have not fulfilled their part.
Why put the onus on the workers , they were trying to do the right thing . It is the company that shoulders the blame.