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Guest Workers Seek Global Horizons: U.S. Company Exploits Migrant Labor. Gee, maybe I could get a job there!
by Kari Lydersen, Special to CorpWatch
November 3rd, 2006
cartoon by Khalil Bendib. About 170 Thai migrants paid thousands of dollars to recruiters in Bangkok for the opportunity to work in the bountiful orchards of Washington state. Their tale illustrates the pitfalls of the H-2A guest worker program which is a mainstay - along with undocumented labor - of the U.S. agricultural system.
The migrant workers paid up to $8,000 each to Thai recruiters working for Global Horizons, a California-based company, which then obtained H-2A agricultural guest worker visas for them, flew them to Washington and set them up in housing, as required by the federal program.
Before taking the jobs, the workers had been told they would live in apartments, eat meals catered by a Mexican restaurant and be able to send significant amounts of money home to their families, according to the Seattle Times.
Instead Global Horizons housed the Thais in motels and trailers that had not been approved, as required, by the state labor department. Without kitchens or laundry facilities, they would cook in hot plates on the floor and wash their clothes in trash cans, according to investigations by legal aid groups reported in local media. Photos provided to CorpWatch by Seattle Times reporter Lornet Turnbull showed groceries crammed into motel mini-fridges, make-shift kitchens constructed on motel room floors and cramped dormitories in a trailer with bunk beds blocking emergency exits.
The orchards where the men worked paid Global Horizons which was responsible for paying the Thai workers. But they were paid late and less than promised, according to the state Department of Labor and Industries.
Money that Global Horizons was supposed to have sent directly to the workers' families through banks in Thailand also wasn't received, according to the state labor department. And according to reporting by the Seattle Times, the workers got no information on what to do in case of workplace injuries and some were persuaded to sign English-language contracts that they didn't understand. Speaking little or no English and knowing their ability to remain in the U.S. was contingent on their employment with Global Horizons, the workers didn't know where to turn. They worked for months in silence before coming in contact with union organizers and legal aid lawyers who helped make their story public.
Forestry Guest Workers
Global Horizons farm workers aren't the only guest workers who have had a rough go of it.
Immigrant workers in the U.S. on similar temporary H-2B visas fill jobs that even most undocumented immigrants don't want: the forestry work which keeps our nation's national forests and commercial tree plantations running.
After landscaping, forestry is the second largest source of H-2B visas for unskilled, non-agricultural foreign workers.
These workers wield chainsaws and dodge falling trees in snow and rain; carry heavy packs of seeds and pound shovels into rocky ground for hours on end; and often spend nights sleeping on tarps on the forest floor.
These "piñeros" also hurtle along windy mountain roads in over-crowded, unsafe vans driven by cut-rate contractors. Fatal accidents are common; seven men from one small town in Guatemala have been killed in separate accidents, and a total of at least 21 pineros from Honduras and Guatemala were killed in the past three years, according to a 2005 investigation by the Sacramento Bee.
There are about 22,000 H-2B piñeros in the U.S. Most of them come from Mexico, Guatemala, or other impoverished Latin American countries. Like H-2A farm workers, they must stay with their employer to legally remain in the U.S.
In March a U.S. Senate subcommittee held hearings on their plight. And in the past two years, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed four class action lawsuits alleging labor violations by four different forestry contractors working on private timber land in the southeast, owned by International Paper, Plum Creek Timber Company, Weyerhaeuser, and other companies.
"They're expected to plant 2,000 pine trees a day," said Southern Poverty Law Center attorney Mary Bauer. She said they are paid $300 to $400 per week less than mandated by the U.S. Department of Labor.
"Everybody in the industry uses H-2B workers, and everybody in the industry underpays them," she said. "That seems to be the standard. I've rarely seen workers as exploited as these H-2B forestry workers."
The Northwest Workers' Justice Project also filed a class action suit representing pineros in Idaho. Attorney Michael Dale said many workers said they signed over the deeds to their land in Mexico in order to pay for their trip north, then lost the land because their wages are so low.
"They're essentially holding the workers in peonage," he said.
by Kari Lydersen, Special to CorpWatch
November 3rd, 2006
cartoon by Khalil Bendib. About 170 Thai migrants paid thousands of dollars to recruiters in Bangkok for the opportunity to work in the bountiful orchards of Washington state. Their tale illustrates the pitfalls of the H-2A guest worker program which is a mainstay - along with undocumented labor - of the U.S. agricultural system.The migrant workers paid up to $8,000 each to Thai recruiters working for Global Horizons, a California-based company, which then obtained H-2A agricultural guest worker visas for them, flew them to Washington and set them up in housing, as required by the federal program.
Before taking the jobs, the workers had been told they would live in apartments, eat meals catered by a Mexican restaurant and be able to send significant amounts of money home to their families, according to the Seattle Times.
Instead Global Horizons housed the Thais in motels and trailers that had not been approved, as required, by the state labor department. Without kitchens or laundry facilities, they would cook in hot plates on the floor and wash their clothes in trash cans, according to investigations by legal aid groups reported in local media. Photos provided to CorpWatch by Seattle Times reporter Lornet Turnbull showed groceries crammed into motel mini-fridges, make-shift kitchens constructed on motel room floors and cramped dormitories in a trailer with bunk beds blocking emergency exits.
The orchards where the men worked paid Global Horizons which was responsible for paying the Thai workers. But they were paid late and less than promised, according to the state Department of Labor and Industries.
Money that Global Horizons was supposed to have sent directly to the workers' families through banks in Thailand also wasn't received, according to the state labor department. And according to reporting by the Seattle Times, the workers got no information on what to do in case of workplace injuries and some were persuaded to sign English-language contracts that they didn't understand. Speaking little or no English and knowing their ability to remain in the U.S. was contingent on their employment with Global Horizons, the workers didn't know where to turn. They worked for months in silence before coming in contact with union organizers and legal aid lawyers who helped make their story public.
Forestry Guest Workers
Global Horizons farm workers aren't the only guest workers who have had a rough go of it.
Immigrant workers in the U.S. on similar temporary H-2B visas fill jobs that even most undocumented immigrants don't want: the forestry work which keeps our nation's national forests and commercial tree plantations running.
After landscaping, forestry is the second largest source of H-2B visas for unskilled, non-agricultural foreign workers.
These workers wield chainsaws and dodge falling trees in snow and rain; carry heavy packs of seeds and pound shovels into rocky ground for hours on end; and often spend nights sleeping on tarps on the forest floor.
These "piñeros" also hurtle along windy mountain roads in over-crowded, unsafe vans driven by cut-rate contractors. Fatal accidents are common; seven men from one small town in Guatemala have been killed in separate accidents, and a total of at least 21 pineros from Honduras and Guatemala were killed in the past three years, according to a 2005 investigation by the Sacramento Bee.
There are about 22,000 H-2B piñeros in the U.S. Most of them come from Mexico, Guatemala, or other impoverished Latin American countries. Like H-2A farm workers, they must stay with their employer to legally remain in the U.S.
In March a U.S. Senate subcommittee held hearings on their plight. And in the past two years, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed four class action lawsuits alleging labor violations by four different forestry contractors working on private timber land in the southeast, owned by International Paper, Plum Creek Timber Company, Weyerhaeuser, and other companies.
"They're expected to plant 2,000 pine trees a day," said Southern Poverty Law Center attorney Mary Bauer. She said they are paid $300 to $400 per week less than mandated by the U.S. Department of Labor.
"Everybody in the industry uses H-2B workers, and everybody in the industry underpays them," she said. "That seems to be the standard. I've rarely seen workers as exploited as these H-2B forestry workers."
The Northwest Workers' Justice Project also filed a class action suit representing pineros in Idaho. Attorney Michael Dale said many workers said they signed over the deeds to their land in Mexico in order to pay for their trip north, then lost the land because their wages are so low.
"They're essentially holding the workers in peonage," he said.
