A trial began in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana in New Orleans in a lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on behalf of guest workers from India who were lured to a Mississippi shipyard way back in 2006.
The trial is part of a seven-year legal battle against Signal International, a marine services company that operates in Mississippi, Alabama and Texas.
It is the first in a series of suits spearheaded by the SPLC that together comprise one of the largest human trafficking cases in US history.
‘This is an extremely important case,’ said lead attorney Alan Howard, chairman of the SPLC board and a partner in Crowell & Moring’s New York office. ‘We’re looking forward to presenting to a jury all of the facts about what happened to our clients, and our clients are excited about finally getting their day in court.’
The suit seeks compensatory damages for emotional pain and suffering, punitive damages and other reliefs.
When contacted for more information the trial, Kyleah Starling, a spokesperson for the SPLC said, “Our legal team, including co-counsel, will not be making public comment until the conclusion of the trial.â€
In a statement Signal International said it will continue to ‘defend against the accusations made against it by exposing the jury to the truth.
‘Signal is confident the evidence will demonstrate, as the Court concluded in denying class certification, this case involves paid workers who could leave their job at any time, were well paid, and free to come and go as they pleased. The only consequence of quitting their job was returning to their home country, but that restriction was dictated by US immigration law not Signal.’
The case titled Kurian David v. Signal International, includes plaintiffs Kurian David, Sony Vasudevan Sulekha, Palanyandi Thangamani, Maruganantham Kandhasamy, Hemant Khuttan, Andrews Issac Padaveettiyl, Dhananjaya Kechuru, Sabulal Vijayan, Krishnan Kumar, Jacob Joseph Kadakkarappally, Kuldeep Singh, and Thanasekar Chellappan, who were among the more than 500 guest workers recruited to the shipyard promising good salary and permanent residence.
Defendants include Signal International, lawyers for them and recruiters including Dewan Consultants of Mumbai.
“I am also part of the first trial team, we are working on it. The Mumbai recruiter is here in New Orleans,†Sabulal Vijayan, one of the plaintiffs said.
According to Signal International, after Hurricane Katrina, they were facing shortages of labor, when they were approached by labor providers and an immigration attorney who proposed it hire temporary guest workers who were skilled craftsmen under the United States’ H-2B temporary worker program.
‘Those workers came to the US; a number of workers left and made serious accusations in lawsuits they filed against Signal seeking to create a class action.
‘Kurian David v. Signal International, was originally filed as a class action, but was denied class certification in January, 2012. The Order and Reasons issued by the Court in denying certification discussed the nature of the claims and the background of the case in great depth. The five plaintiffs going to trial are proceeding in an individual capacity. Signal has always maintained the plaintiffs’ claims are meritless, and has vigorously defended itself for over seven years. In response to Signal’s motions for summary judgment, the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed some of the most serious allegations they made in their original complaint.’
But the suit filed by SPLC alleged that the defendants engineered a scheme not only to defraud the Indian workers but to use illegal coercion and threats to maintain control over them and keep them working at Signal. The recruiters and lawyer received millions of dollars in recruiting fees from the workers and Signal made millions in profits from their labor, but not one of the workers received what he was promised.
The SPLC filed the suit in March 2008. When a judge did not grant class action status to benefit most of Signal’s guest workers, the SPLC brought together nearly a dozen of the nation’s top law firms and civil rights organizations to represent, on a pro bono basis, hundreds of other workers who had been excluded from the original SPLC suit by the denial of class action status.
The workers each paid the labor recruiters and lawyer between $10,000 and $20,000 or more after recruiters promised good jobs, green cards and permanent residency. Most sold property or plunged their families deeply into debt to pay the fees.
When the men arrived at Signal shipyards in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and Orange, Texas, beginning in 2006, they discovered that they wouldn’t receive permanent residency that had been promised to them, and that Signal viewed them, and treated them as a temporary labor force. Signal forced them to pay $1,050 a month to live in overcrowded, guarded labor camps where as many as 24 men shared a space the size of a double-wide trailer.
When some of them tried to find their own housing, Signal officials told them the labor camp fee would still be deducted from their paychecks. Visitors were rarely allowed into the isolated camps. Company employees searched workers’ belongings and workers who complained of the conditions were threatened with deportation.
In March 2007, some of the workers were illegally detained by security guards for deporting them to India in retaliation for complaining about the abuses and meeting with workers’ rights advocates. One of these workers attempted suicide.
‘Deeply indebted, fearful, isolated, disoriented, and unfamiliar with their rights under United States law, these workers felt compelled to continue working for Signal,’ the lawsuit charged.
Three years after the SPLC filed its lawsuit, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed suit against Signal, accusing the company of discriminating against the Indian guest workers.
The workers who came between 2004 to 2007 and suffered much, are more or less settled now. They got T visas given for victims of human trafficking. Most of them have brought their families and got Green Cards.
But recently some of those who traveled to India with T visa on their passports were not allowed to return to the US. Families of T visa holders organized a protest at the Indian consulate in Houston.
