4.19.2011

eeoc files three huge labor trafficking lawsuits

This week, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed three lawsuits against labor traffickers -- a labor broker in California, farms in Hawaii and Washington, and a marine services company in Mississippi and Texas -- that subjected foreign workers to severe abuse and discrimination: EEOC Combats Labor Trafficking, Severe Abuse and Discrimination in Lawsuits Filed Today.

The EEOC's Los Angeles district office filed suit in Hawaii against Global Horizons, the labor broker, and six farms there, for trafficking violations against Thai workers. In a separate suit, the EEOC's Birmingham, AL office filed suit in Mississippi charging that Signal International, a marine services company with facilities along the Gulf Coast, subjected at least 500 Indian welders to intolerable conditions and labor violations:
The EEOC's Los Angeles district office filed suit in Hawaii (Civ. No. CV-11-00257-DAE-RLP) against Global Horizons, the labor broker, and six farms there; and a separate suit filed in Washington (Civ No. 2:11-cv-03045-EFS), against Global Horizons and two farms in that state, alleging that Global brought more than 200 Thai men into the country to work as farm workers on the promises of high-paying wages and temporary visas. Once in the country, the workers had their passports confiscated and were threatened with deportation if they complained. They were employed on the eight farms named in the two lawsuits, where they received low wages - far less than promised, forced into vermin-ridden housing, denied the opportunity to leave the premises, and subjected to harassment, including physical assaults, by their overseers. Further, the workers had to pay large sums to Global as recruitment fees, putting them and their families back in Thailand severely in debt, making it impossible for them to leave, even had they been permitted to.

In a separate suit, the Birmingham, Ala., office of the EEOC filed suit in Mississippi charging that Signal International, a marine services company with facilities along the Gulf Coast, subjected at least 500 Indian welders and pipe-fitters at its Mississippi and Texas locations to segregated facilities and discriminatory terms and conditions of employment. These workers, brought into the country by a separate entity not part of the lawsuit, were forced to live in Signal's substandard, unsanitary accommodations, for which they were charged an inordinate amount, given unwholesome food, demeaned by being referred to by numbers instead of their names, and at least two of them were retaliated against for complaining about the substandard conditions and discrimination.
I previously wrote about the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund's lawsuit against Signal International here. Here's the EEOC's press release about the case: EEOC Sues Marine Services Company for Labor Trafficking, Discrimination.

And here's the EEOC press release about the suit against Global Horizons and the farms: EEOC Files Its Largest Farm Worker Human Trafficking Suit Against Global Horizons, Farms. (Thanks, Jen.)

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