A total of $1.4million (£715,000) is being paid to welders brought from Thailand to the US and trapped in a trafficking racket.
One worker believed he was going to the US, the ‘fairytale place’, to
work on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in California for wages
six times as much as he could earn in Thailand. Instead he was put to
work 13-hour days for three months in a restaurant, for which he was
paid $220.
He was housed in a shabby apartment without gas, electricity or
furniture and was told he would be sent back to Thailand if he
complained.
The case was settled by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
and the Trans Bay Steel Corp, of Napa, California, which stressed the
settlement was no admission that there were failings on its part. Human
rights experts
are calling the scam the hidden face of human trafficking, in which
migrant workers are recruited, mainly from Asia and Latin America, and
then exploited and abused. It is said to be today’s least known but
most widely used method of enslaving people.
The 48 men brought from Thailand had to pay recruitment fees of about $12,500, for which they borrowed from loan sharks.
Trans Bay claims it was duped by an employment agency into sponsoring
more workers than it needed. The surplus men were than diverted into
sweated labour jobs.
Doug Smith, Trans Bay’s attorney, said the company agreed to the
settlement to help the victims and warned other businesses to
investigate any potential employment agencies. Trans Bay is suing the
agency, Kota Manpower, of Thailand and Los Angeles, for fraud.
Smith said Trans Bay agreed to pay Kota a package amounting to $18.80
an hour for every worker. Kota was then to pay the welders directly.
Anna Park, the commission’s lawyer, said her agency is trying to pursue
charges against Kota. However, Kota has closed its Los Angeles office,
and the company president, Yoo Taik Kim, cannot be found.
The settlement gives most of the workers between $5,000 and $7,500 in
personal injury damages, together with financial assistance for
housing, relocation, education and other expenses. Trans Bay has hired
22 of the welders and offered jobs to the others to start after they
obtain work visas.
