A Group of Indian Workers Sue U.S. Company for Exploiting Them
By siliconindia   |   Wednesday, 22 May 2013, 22:58 IST
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Bangalore: Several Indian guest workers who were recruited to work at Gulf Coast shipyards by Signal International LLC, a U.S.-based marine and Fabrication Company are planning to sue the company. The reasons behind such a move is the financial exploitation they had to face and the filthy conditions they were forced to live in, reports Associated Press.

3 lawsuits were filed in Mississippi and Texas recently on behalf of 83 employees, which are backed by the Southern Poverty Law Centre.

This is not the first time the company is being sued; in the year 2008 and later on in 2011 similar suits were filed against Signal International. But, no action has been taken so far.

According to the plaintiffs, the company made use of the H-2B guest worker program by the government of U.S., to recruit them to work as welders and pipefitters in Mississippi and Texas.

"The cornerstone of the defendants' scheme was the tantalizing prospect that Signal would be able to hire a skilled workforce at effectively no cost by forcing the plaintiffs and their coworkers to foot the bill for their own recruitment, immigration processing, and travel," says the suit filed on Tuesday in Mississippi.

Apart from this, the firm also gave false promise to these employees of helping them to get green cards.

"Put simply, plaintiffs had been deceived into taking on life-altering debt for something that was never going to happen," says the suit, which also says workers were required to live in camps that exposed them to "barbaric and prison-like conditions, reports AP.
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