Indian guest workers victims of modern-day slavery in U.S.

Slavery is alive and well in the United States, according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of 500 Indian guest workers on Wednesday by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). [caption id=“attachment_1734” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Christopher Furlong/Getty Images”]  [/caption] In filing suit, the federal agency that monitors American companies for discriminatory labor practices has alleged that an Alabama-based marine and oil rig fabrication company subjected Indian guest workers to human trafficking and a hostile work environment. More specifically, the EEOC alleges that the company assigned the most dangerous and difficult jobs at their Texas and Mississippi locations to the temporary Indian employees, who were forced to live in fenced-in housing that was overcrowded and unsanitary.Because the company, Signal International, allegedly targeted Indians, the EEOC claims that the firm engaged in race and national-origin discrimination; the agency also charges that the company illegally retaliated against workers who resisted these practices. “The injustice here towards Indian workers solicited to come to the United States violated the mandates of federal law,” Delner Franklin-Thomas, an EEOC district director said in a statement. “Employers cannot avoid anti-discrimination laws by seeking to hire workers from other countries.” The EEOC action follows a lawsuit suit filed in 2008 against Signal International that alleges that some of the same Indian laborers were victims of forced labor and immigration fraud. Signal hired Indian workers in 2005 following Hurricane Katrina. But the company allegedly engaged in illegal practices to attract - and exploit-its Indian recruits. For example, the firm allegedly required potential employees to pay as much as $20,000 for travel expenses and various fees, and falsely promised that the company would help the workers obtain an American green card so that they could remain in the U.S. permanently. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), one of the organisations that filed the class-action lawsuit against Signal [PDF], “many of the workers sold their houses and other valuables and took out high-interest loans to come up with the money.” The conditions in the U.S. were a far cry from what they were promised. According to court documents, the workers were required to pay $1,050 per month for meals that sometimes led to illness and hospitalisation, and for housing in fenced-in trailers, which housed up to 24 men. When plaintiff Sabulal Vijayan protested to the Signal working and living conditions, his employer threatened to deport him and hundreds of his Indian colleagues, documents say. That threat, coupled with the debts he’d incurred in the process of immigrating to the U.S., led Vijayan to attempt suicide in 2007. Jacob Joseph Kadakkarappally, another plaintiff who complained about the working conditions at Signal, was locked in a room with two other workers for several hours before they were all fired and told they would be sent back to India. Local media and community leaders intervened, and Kadakkarappally avoided deportation. “American workers would never be forced to endure what Signal did to us,” Kadakkarappally said in a statement. “Signal thought they could get away with the abuses because we’re from India.” Signal could not be reached for comment on either case, but in previous media reports, it has called the allegations “ baseless and unfounded.”