Freedom Folks: Guest Workers Fired After Protesting Slavelike Conditions

Source: Political affairs

OAKLAND, CA (4/11/07) -- Hundreds of guest workers from India are protesting conditions in a Pascagoula shipyard that immigrant rights activists compare to slavery. Many gathered in a church on March 11 in this Gulf Coast port, after their employer, Signal International, threatened to send some of the workers home. Signal is a large corporation that repairs and services oil drilling platforms in the Gulf. According to Bill Chandler, executive director of the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance, "they were hired in India by a labor recruiter sent by Signal. They had to pay exorbitant amounts to the company, to the recruiter and to the attorney who did the labor certification for them." Signal brought about 300 workers from India in December to work in its Mississippi yard, and another group to work in two yards in Texas. The workers are part of the H2B visa program, in which the US government allows companies to recruit workers outside the country, and bring them here under contract.