Alliance Demands DOL Act to Protect Guestworkes Affected by BP Oil Spill
New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice
217 N. Prieur St., (504) 309-5165
New Orleans, Louisiana 70112
ALLIANCE OF GUESTWORKERS FOR DIGNITY
July 9, 2010
VIA EMAIL AND REGULAR MAIL
Nancy Leppink
Acting Wage and Hour Administrator
U.S. Department of Labor
Frances Perkins Building
200 Constitution Ave.
NW, Washington, DC 20210
Facsimile: (202) 693-6111
RE: Protecting Guestworkers Facing Loss of Income in Relation to the Deepwater Horizon Incident
Dear Administrator Leppink:
I write on behalf of the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity and its members. The Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity, a grassroots project of the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, is a national membership organization working across sector to protect the rights of all workers- both guestworkers and U.S. workers- employed in industries using the H-2B program and to promote just and dignified migration and work.
Our outreach and reports from our membership show that increasing numbers of guestworkers employed in the Deepwater Horizon Incident zone in various sectors are facing termination or reduced hours in violation of their contracts. See e.g. Mark Schleifstein,” Gulf Oil Spill Only the Latest Environmental Battle Waged in Lake Pontchartrain”, The Times Picayune (discussing the impending lay-off of 70 guestworkers from Mexico currently employed in crabmeat picking in Slidell).
Furthermore, guestworkers are being terminated or employed for reduced hours without appropriate compensation.
As the Department is aware, guestworkers are among the most vulnerable low-wage workers. Our members have reported that termination mid-contract and/or reduced hours has resulted in their inability to pay debts related to obtaining the guestworker jobs and inability to provide basic food, housing, and medical bills for their families.
Insofar as the compensation should come from BP, guestworkers must rely on their employers to inform them of and facilitate this process. Many employers are instead terminating guestworkers mid-contract and directing them to return to their home countries without any compensation from the employer or information or records necessary to seek compensation from BP.
Click here to continue reading the letter to Administrator Leppink.
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February 4, 2010
A Bitter Guest Worker Story
Editorial, The New York Times
A federal agency appears to have collaborated in an effort to silence foreign workers who claimed they were lured here under false pretenses and abused by the company they worked for. The role of Immigration and Customs Enforcement – reported in The Times by Julia Preston – is being investigated by the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department.
February 2, 2010
Suit Points to Guest Worker Program Flaws
by Julia Preston, The New York Times
Immigration authorities worked closely with a marine oil-rig company in Mississippi to discourage protests by temporary guest workers from India over their job conditions, including advising managers to send some workers back to India, according to new testimony in a federal lawsuit against the company, Signal International.
The cooperation between the company and federal immigration agents is recounted in sworn depositions by Signal managers who were involved when tensions in its shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., erupted into a public clash in March 2007.
