Guest Workers Fighting Back (Time) They are here legally-pre-signed contracts are all but fiction

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1599032,00.html

Guest Workers Fighting Back
Wednesday, Mar. 14, 2007 By JEAN FRIEDMAN-RUDOVSKY/LA PAZ

On Aug. 16, 2006, 82 immigrants stood handcuffed in front of a New Orleans federal courthouse. They weren't on trial, but rather launching a suit against their employer, Decatur Hotels, and its owner, local magnate F. Patrick Quinn III. Brought to the U.S. to fill post-Katrina vacancies, the guest workers claim that their pre-signed contracts are all but fiction, and they are demanding compensation. The handcuffs — along with enlarged copies of their visa papers strung around their necks — were symbolic.

"We came to the U.S. legally," says one Decatur plaintiff from Bolivia, who chose to remain unidentified for fear of recrimination. "But people took advantage of our economic desperation and the result is modern-day slavery."


Latin American hotel workers wear mock handcuffs at a news conference in New Orleans in August, 2006. They have filed a lawsuit against Decatur Hotels LLC.
Roger L. Wollenberg / UPI / Landov

In 2006, hundreds of New Orleans businesses claimed that the area's depleted workforce could not match their hiring needs, despite the fact that unemployment rates reached 8.9% in the city and 16.8% in surrounding suburbs following Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. Instead of hiring local residents, employers brought in thousands of guest workers from abroad to fill the gap.

Recruited by subcontracted agencies in their home countries, 290 workers arrived on 10-month H-2B visas (for non-professional, non-agricultural labor) from Bolivia, the Dominican Republic and Peru to work at the front desk, in maintenance, and as cleaning staff for Decatur's 15 luxury hotels throughout the New Orleans area. Decatur, founded in 1988 by Quinn and Edwin Palmer III, prides itself on turning abandoned historic buildings into boutique hotels. Decatur's lawyer Patricia LeBlanc told the Associated Press on Aug. 17 that the hotel firm sought to use the H-2B program for the first time after Katrina because the company had consistent problems finding hourly workers locally.

The guest workers arrived last spring with the hope of saving enough money to start a business, buy a home or support extended family. They left behind spouses and children and, in most cases, spent $3000 to $5000 each on recruitment, visa and travel fees. "If I got the 40 hours a week at $6 per hour promised in my contract, I knew I could pay back my debt, send money home and save for the future," says one worker from the Dominican Republic, who also requested anonymity.

But they say the reality of their situation was much different from what they were promised. According to the contracts they signed with Decatur before coming to the U.S., the guest workers were to live in a "very nice newly refurbished hotel with large swimming pool" and assured "ransportation provided to and from work." Instead, the workers say they were put in a half-rebuilt, mold-infested Decatur motel and left on their own to get to and from work. The pool water, according to one guest worker, produced fungal infections on contact.

FULL story at link.

[ret5hd]

1. Wonder when our local pro-Minuteman Militia types show up...

you know, the ones that are so loudly "Pro Legal Immigration But What Part Of Illegal Dont You Understand".

[poorinnaples]

2. Is there any possibility?

That a livable wage might have attracted more "local residents", who one could assume, under the circumstances, could've used the money to help rebuild New Orleans, & put their lives back together, or is this just about cheap labor, & everybody getting screwed, but "Quinn and Edwin Palmer III".