Guest Workers Exploited by Recruiters and Employers

by James Parks, Apr 19, 2007

As Congress divides over proposals to address immigration, a USA Today/Gallup poll out today found 78 percent of respondents believe undocumented workers now in the country should be given a chance at citizenship. Meanwhile, a report by Lindsay Beyerstein and Larisa Alexandrovna on The Raw Story highlights the extent to which the nation’s guest worker program is broken.

On March 9, six guest workers from India in the country on H-2B visas were rousted out of bed at 3 a.m. by armed company security guards and held prisoner in the TV room of the Signal International’s shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., where the company’s 290 Indian welders and pipe fitters live.

The company says it was holding the six men on advice of U.S. immigration officials, in an attempt to forcibly deport them. But two of the Indian workers, Joseph Jacob and Sabu Lal, said they believe the raid was Signal’s reaction to worker complaints.

Even though the workers were later released, Beyerstein and Alexandrovna point out the incident illustrates a long-standing problem with guest worker programs. The workers often are exploited by so-called “recruiters” and the companies they work for. The H-2A and H-2B visa programs bring in agricultural and other seasonal workers to pick crops, build houses and process seafood, among other jobs.

The Raw Story reports the Indian workers at the Signal shipyard paid on average between $15,000 and $20,000 each to travel to America, lured by promises of high-paying jobs. Many of them sold all their possessions or borrowed money at exorbitant interest rates from loan sharks to finance the trip.

Guest workers typically are deeply in debt by the time they arrive in the United States, where the companies that hire them often charge additional fees for boarding, food and expenses.

Signal charges residents $35 a day for living expenses.

And the living is not easy. Jacob told reporters the conditions at the Pascagoula “man-camp” were the worst he’d seen in his long career as a guest worker. Twenty-four men are packed in windowless trailers, known as “bunkers.”

Signal’s Indian recruiters promised the workers $18.50 an hour but cut the wages of some workers to $13.50 an hour or even less. Jacob says the company tried forcing some 30 people to sign papers to cut their salaries. If they didn’t sign, the company threatened to deport them.

Click here to read the entire story about the Indian workers’ plight.

The Indian guest workers’ story is not unique. A study by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Close to Slavery: Guestworker Programs in the United States, relates that it is not unusual for a Guatemalan worker to pay more than $2,500 in fees to obtain a seasonal guest worker position, about a year’s worth of income in Guatemala. And Thai workers have paid as much as $10,000 for the chance to harvest crops in the orchards of the Pacific Northwest. Interest rates on the loans are sometimes as high as 20 percent a month. Homes and vehicles are required collateral.

The workers in these programs also receive little, if any, protection from unscrupulous recruiters or employers. In late March, legislation was introduced to enhance protections for skilled guest workers. For more information on the legislation, click here.

The solution to the guest worker crisis will require a new approach, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said in a recent Los Angeles Times opinion piece.

Key reforms should include:

• Everyone who is admitted to work must immediately be on a track toward permanent residency.
• Employers who can prove that they tried and failed to find U.S. workers should be able to hire foreign workers, but not under abusive conditions that have a negative effect on the wages and working conditions.
• Caps on the number of employment-based visas issued each year should be set by  the U.S. Department of Labor based on economic indicators that establish the needs of particular industries, not by political compromise.
• Employers should not be allowed to recruit abroad, a practice that invites bribes, exorbitant fees and potential abuse. Instead, employers should be required to hire from applications filed by workers in their home countries through a computerized job bank.
• Foreign workers should enjoy the same rights and protections as U.S. workers, including freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life.

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