Maitri's VatulBlog

Never can or will I forget the injustices suffered by South Asian workers around the world. Cheap and expendable to their employers, few industrial workers and ayahs, butlers, cooks and drivers to the world’s wealthiest are treated with simple human dignity when working hard to send money to their families back home. The stories and statistics linked to physical, psychological and sexual abuse of workers by their “masters” and subsequent suicides, especially in Arabia but also prevalent in Europe and the United States, are shocking and sickening in their scope. So, the following tale of the two-year-long plight of South Indian workers in a Pascagoula, MS shipyard is only that much worse.

SiliconIndia: Indian workers at U.S. shipyard allege human trafficking

More than 100 Indian workers at a Mississippi shipyard staged a walkout claiming they were victims of human trafficking and lived and worked in abysmal conditions.

The workers plan to report themselves to the Department of Justice as trafficking victims and demand federal prosecution of the employer, Signal International, a local television channel WLOX-TV reported. They claim they were lured to come on H2B visas for temporary workers to Pascagoula shipyard run by Signal after Hurricane Katrina caused worker shortage.

… the chain began in 2006 when recruiters in Mumbai and New Orleans together with Signal, a subcontractor, used the post-Katrina labour shortage to create a trafficking racket within the guest worker programme.

The Hindu, South India’s leading newspaper, reports that the workers number in the 400-600s and hail primarily from the southwestern Indian state of Kerala, and that “most of them [are] pipe fitters and welders, [who] had to sell their houses or raise heavy loans to pay the visa amount demanded by the recruiter.” Only a hundred or so of these workers participated in the walkout, while the majority “remained silent for fear of losing their jobs.”

Signal International is not just a shipyard, but a marine fabrication company that constructs oil exploration and production rigs (which makes me feel so much better) and is a major subcontractor to Northrop Grumman Ship Systems. Yes, that Northrop Grumman.

Saket Soni, director of the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, reports that the workers lived “like pigs in a cage” and that he has “never seen these kinds of conditions.” Further details on the living and dining conditions are available in The Hindu article.

Incidentally, Soni and the Workers’ Center were central to the 2006 lawsuit against Decatur Hotels, LLC in which 82 “Latin American workers brought a federal lawsuit [against the hotelier], who lured them through false promises and charged them thousands of dollars in fees to fill jobs held by New Orleanians prior to Hurricane Katrina.” Sounds like a common post-Katrina employment theme – do nothing to bring old workers back and screw over poorly-paid foreign nationals.

It appears the situation was a Catch-22 for the Indian workers, as is normally the case. If they stay and quietly work at their jobs, they are forced to live in the deplorable conditions listed above. If they speak out, they risk deportation and a return to India where they, along with their families, will face severe hardships after having sold most or all assets to raise visa money. Of course, Signal International denies all wrongdoing. To be fair, it is unclear at this time whether Signal’s HR department or the Indo-US hiring company, through which the workers were hired, is at fault.

Everyday, the New Orleans bloggers complain about disaster capitalism in post-Katrina Southern Louisiana and here it is at its worst. Tomorrow, I will contact Saket Soni and find out what is being done to help these men and if the US State Department and any local Indian organizations are involved. The Hindu claims that a local church got the revolting workers together with members of the Center for Racial Justice and that a human rights organization has put these men up in a hotel. Another unanswered question: if former Signal employee, Sabulal Vijayan, was ousted from his job over a year ago for speaking out and if he has already “testified before a Congressional subcommittee investigating post-Katrina labour violations in the region,” why is the story hitting major news outlets only now?

Sadly, it was India that sent us 22 tons of relief supplies in the days of the flood, while our own leadership sat on its hands, and it is repaid by its workers being treated poorly at the hands of a Gulf Coast corporation. As Manish, formerly of Sepia Mutiny, opined on this topic, “The best solution would be for [South Asian nations] to adopt economic reforms and create jobs at home so these [people] don’t have to emigrate in the first place.” Until then, these brave men and women are in constant danger, for the sake of putting food on the family plate. Some in our backyard, no less. Help me find out more about what’s going on at Signal International, pass the story on and let’s brainstorm about how to help get the word out about this and other worker abuses in this area. It’s bad enough that taxpaying Americans suffer indignities at the hands of government and business, especially on the Gulf Coast after late 2005. There is no need to outsource this tragedy.

Update (Sunday, March 9, 2008):  From NDTV.com comes news that the Overseas Indian Affairs Minister, Vayalar Ravi, has promised support for Signal’s Indian workers.  In addition, the workers have contacted the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and “plan to report themselves to the Department of Justice as trafficking victims.”