India Post News Service

NEW YORK: Thursday, March 6, nearly 100 Indian H2B guest workers celebrated with song and dance after breaking an 18-month chain of human trafficking that stretched from Mumbai to Pascagoula, Mississippi. After reporting themselves to the Department of Justice as victims of trafficking and demanding federal prosecution of Signal International, the Gulf Coast marine construction company where they worked, the workers marched to the company’s main gates bearing signs that read, "Dignity." In a symbolic rejection of the coercion and exploitation they endured for over a year, they threw their hard hats en masse toward Signal’s main gate. On March 10, the workers had marched on the office of prominent New Orleans attorney Malvern Burnett, one of the defendants in the anti-racketeering lawsuit the workers have filed against Signal International and Indian and American recruiters.

The workers, who raised a firestorm in the Indian media in recent days when their Alliance of Guest workers for Dignity broke a human trafficking chain, circulated copies of the lawsuit in the posh New Orleans neighborhood where Burnett’s law offices are located. The office was locked, and Burnett, who repeatedly promised the workers green cards and permanent residency in exchange for $20,000, called to cancel an appointment several workers had made for that afternoon.

"For more than one year, hundreds of Indian workers at Signal International have been living like slaves. We paid $15,000 to $20,000 to come here because we were promised green cards and permanent residency, but they lied and gave us 10-month guest worker visas instead. Signal knew about our debt and exploited us," former Signal worker Sabulal Vijayan told an audience of domestic and international media. "Today the workers are coming out to declare their freedom. This trafficking needs to end. We need freedom in this country.

I am a human being. That’s my message," said Vijayan, who has testified before a Congressional subcommittee investigating post-Katrina labor violations on the Gulf Coast. The trafficking chain 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 George W. Bush wants to expand.

"They promised us green cards and permanent residency, and instead gave us ten-month visas and made us live like animals in company trailers, 24 to a room," said Vijayan. "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. A year later, Signal workers are taking action to protect future workers.

"The recruiters who defrauded us are collecting money from other workers right now with the same false promises. We are speaking out to protect them," said Vijayan, who has testified before a Congressional subcommittee investigating post-Katrina labor violations on the Gulf Coast. "The US 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 Saket Soni, director of the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice.

"This is precisely what is happening on the gulf Coast." "I have been a guest worker all my life in many parts of the world, and I never saw such conditions. We were forced to live in company trailers, 24 men in a single room," former Signal employee Rajan Pazhambalakode. "We spoke out to protect future workers." When the workers began to organize last year, Signal sent armed guards to detain and fire the organizers. A year later, Signal workers took action to end Signal’s continuing recruitment of Indian workers.

"The US 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 Saket Soni, director of the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice.

"This is precisely what is happening on the Gulf Coast." According to Stephen Boykewich, Media coordinator for New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, now that the workers have taken to legal recourse – demanding a federal investigation as well as bringing a civil lawsuit – he believes the federal authorities will do whatever is necessary so the workers can participate as witnesses in the federal investigation.

"Federal authorities have taken similar cases from members of Alliance of Guest Workers for Dignity, of which the Indians are part of, very seriously," Boykewich told India Post. "so we are hopeful they will do so in this case too." Boykewich said besides the Alliance which involves workers from India, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Brazil and other places, there are three allies that contributed the legal work on the civil lawsuit: the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the Louisiana Justice Project. Meanwhile, the media firestorm in India prompted Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi to open an investigation on March 9, into the possibility of an official US role in the trafficking.

Even as the protest outside Burnett’s office continued, workers received a phone call from Oomen Chandy, the former Chief Minister from their home state of Kerala. Vijayan briefed Chandy on the labor trafficking chain that bound him and hundreds of other workers to Signal. In a letter dated March 11 to the Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chao, Congressman from California Rep. George Miller pointed out that the workers concerned had paid $20,000 to Dewan Consultants, a labor recruiting company in India.

He further pointed out that he had sponsored legislation to address the unjust treatment of guest workers by labor recruiters and employers, including provisions for the prohibition of recruitment fees and the imposition of civil and criminal penalties on violaters. The Congressman has also asked the labor department for all H2B documents for the last five years of Signal International, Dewan Consultants and other contractors involved.

"We hope that this litigation forces the US and India into serious dialogue about ending the use of the guest worker program to traffic Indians into an American nightmare," said Saket Soni, director of the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice. "With this litigation, the Alliance of Guest workers for Dignity has taken a major step forward in exposing the way that prominent American recruiters and corporations use the guest worker program as a legal sanction for worker abuse," said Tushar Sheth of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

On Thursday, members of the Alliance of Guest Workers for Dignity, a grassroots project of the New Orleans Workers’ Center, challenged US officials to practice what they preach. Signal has denied the charges and issued a statement in which it says it spent over $7 million to house the workers.