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| India closely following ill-treatment of workers in US | | | Washington | Mar 10
India is closely following the developments at a Mississippi shipyard, where over 100 Indian workers have quit their jobs protesting alleged "slave treatment" by their employer after being "tricked" into coming to the US.
"We are pursuing the matter seriously," a senior official of the Indian Embassy told PTI. "Our Mission (Consulate) in Houston, Texas is following this," the official added.
The scandal came to light when over 100 Indian workers, mostly welders and pipe-fitters, alleged last week they lived "like pigs in a cage" in a "work camp" run by Signal International in Pascagoula shipyard at Mississippi.
Signal, a marine fabrication company, forced them to live in substandard housing with 24 men crammed into a small room for which they were charged more than USD 1,000 a month, the workers had claimed.
The agitating workers have demanded a federal investigation in not only the "inhuman" living conditions they have been subjected to but also that a Signal recruiter had brought them to the US by promising permanent residency in exchange for USD 20,000 fee.
Instead they said they were given a 10-month work visa.
"For more than one year, hundreds of Indian workers at Signal International have been living like slaves," a former Signal worker Sabulal Vijayan was quoted as saying by ABC.
"Today the workers are coming out to declare their freedom. This trafficking needs to end."
According to news reports, the workers have reported their situation to the US Department of Justice and demanded that the company be tried on human trafficking charges. |
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