http://www.folo.us/2008/04/13/david-v-signals-dickensian-tale/
David v. Signal’s Dickensian tale
April 13th, 2008 – by lotus · No Comments
Recently dmwriter alerted me to a new class-action lawsuit in New Orleans’ federal court, David v. Signal, whose allegations read like a 19th-century novel.
Brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center and other attorneys for over 500 Indian citizens recruited in either their home country or the United Arab Emirates to work at Signal International LLC’s oil-rig yards in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and Orange, Texas, the suit alleges forced labor, assault and battery, fraud, and a number of related abuses. The defendants are Signal and several individuals and firms supplying its recruiting, legal, and labor-brokerage needs. The New York Times‘ report on the suit is here, but the 82-page complaint lays out an overview that I paraphrase:
After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita depleted Signal’s workforce in Mississippi and Texas, in 2006 its recruiters set up shop in India and the UAE. Lured by these recruiters’ lying promises of legal, permanent work-based immigration to the US for themselves and their families, the men left stable jobs, plunged their families into debt, liquidated their life savings, and sold their family homes and other possessions to pay Signal’s recruitment, immigration processing, and travel fees (up to $20,000 apiece).
Trafficked into the US via the H-2B guestworker program (which does not lead to the green cards they were promised), they became forced labor — something between indentured servants and slaves — as welders and fitters at Signal’s Pascagoula and Orange yards.
When they arrived, Signal stuffed them into guarded, overcrowded, isolated labor camps, charging them $200 for their tool kits and $35 a day for meals from unhygienic kitchens that often made them sick, lying to them about their visa status, threatening them with deportation, and “generally perpetrat[ing] a campaign of psychological abuse, coercion, and fraud designed to render Plaintiffs and other class members afraid, intimidated, and unable to leave Signal’s employ.”
On March 9, 2007, the company’s private security guards tried to forcibly deport five of the men in retaliation for speaking out against conditions in the Pascagoula camp. “Terrified by the threat of imminent deportation and the security guards pursuing him,” one of the five attempted suicide and had to be taken to a local hospital. Amid the chaos, another hid and escaped the camp. Then the guards forced the other three into a locked, guarded room, refusing them water or bathroom access for hours. Finally, a Pascagoula police officer inside and gathering local media and residents outside the camp pressured Signal into releasing the men.
Seeing or quickly hearing of this, the remaining workers in Mississippi and Texas, now “deeply fearful, isolated, disoriented, and unfamiliar with their rights under United States law, felt compelled to continue working for Signal.”
But last month, they sued:
Plaintiffs assert class action claims against Defendants arising from violations of their rights under the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (“TVPA”); the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”); the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (42 U.S.C. § 1981); the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 (42 U.S.C. § 1985); collective action claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA); and claims for damages arising from fraud/negligent misrepresentation and breach of contract. Plaintiffs Sabulal Vijayan, Jacob Joseph Kadakkarappally, Kuldeep Singh, Krishan Kumar, and Thanasekar Chellappan also bring individual claims arising from the retaliation in violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (42 U.S.C. § 1981); the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 (42 U.S.C. § 1985), false imprisonment, assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and/or negligent infliction of emotional distress.
The Indian news site livemint.com reports:
Now Signal said it was a mistake and blamed third-party recruiters. “Both Signal and our employees were misled,” said a written statement from president and CEO Richard Marler. “We are going to stand by our workers and do what we can to help them get justice. The recruiters’ abuses cannot be tolerated.” …
Tell you what: CEO Marler’s it’s-all-the-recruiters’-doing diverges so wildly from the plaintiffs’ account of what happened to them, both abroad and (especially) in the US, it sounds as if any jury this case reaches can expect to weigh unusually mutually-exclusive stories.
Whatever develops, it’s sure to be a fascinating case to follow. Just don’t expect the laughs U.S. v. Scruggs has supplied.
