“A Job No American Will Do”
Metal Trades Department, AFL-CIO
Employers justify hiring immigrant workers by saying it is a job no American will do….
On March 27th, more than 100 Indian H-2B visa immigration workers staged a press conference at DuPont Circle in Washington, D.C. to draw attention to their claims of exploitation by Signal International, a Mississippi based Shipyard Corporation. The following day they staged a protest at the White House.
Several years ago the Metal Trades Department was trying to organize the shipyards in Mississippi that are today Signal International. Then they were owned by Friede Goldman-Halter. The company declared bankruptcy and was placed under trusteeship of the bankruptcy court. We filed “mechanic’s liens” on behalf of the workers wages and benefits in the court and those workers eventually received tens of thousands of dollars settlement for the mechanic’s liens, thanks to our efforts in their behalf. Unfortunately most lost their jobs during the bankruptcy proceedings.
A group of “investors” formed a new company, Signal International, and took over the Friede Goldman- Halter shipyards. Many of the same workers, supervisors and managers went right back to work in the same shops with the same equipment, working for the same managers…but the union organizing campaign was busted up and the pro union workers were not rehired. Same old union busting song and dance of exploiting workers, scaring them into submission and using corporate economic terrorism to destroy their rights. Many of these wealthy Signal investors are considered the pillars of Pascagoula, Mississippi society and are well thought of in the community and churches.
Fast forward to Hurricane Katrina…the Mississippi Gulf Coast is hit with the most disastrous hurricane in modern history with 26 feet of storm surge. The devastation is in biblical proportions, unbelievable even to those of us who saw it with our own eyes. Miles and miles of homes are totally and completely destroyed, even the concrete foundations are gone. There was nowhere to live, no homes to rent, no where to house workers. That was the reality at the end of 2005.
Gulf Coast shipyards scrambled to get back in business. Our Northrop Grumman yards in Pascagoula, Gulfport and New Orleans worked to get their employees to come back and the Metal Trades Department and our Gulf Coast Councils did everything in our power to help. We lobbied Congress for worker assistance and for funds to rebuild. For a while ur union shipyard workers were housed in temporary facilities on company property. Organized labor pumped in a billion dollars of union investments in rebuilding the Gulf Coast, including a new manufactured housing factory just outside New Orleans. Ours was the first major private investment to begin the rebuilding and revitalization. We helped jump started the rebuilding process on the Gulf Coast.
In the meantime high tech warships were being built and delivered to the U.S. Navy by Northrop Grumman Corporation. We didn’t have as many workers as before the storm and we didn’t have all the shipyard shops rebuilt, but our members were building ships while they also rebuilt the yards, all the rolling stock, rebuilt all the cranes and renovated the entire electrical grid that was submerged in almost twenty feet of salt water.
Later, Northrop Grumman decided to subcontract out our work (they recently told us it was due to not having enough manpower). Yep, you guessed it…Signal International is one of the major Northrop Grumman subcontractors and is receiving millions of your tax dollars to build these Navy ships. They are constructing 187 of the units of Northrop Grumman’s next Navy LPD class ship. It takes a total of 212 units to assemble one of these ships. In other words, Signal is actually constructing more than 88 percent of the ship—and reportedly using a large contingent of H2B immigrant workers to perform those tasks. Although Signal claims "the (Indian) workers will have the full status of any other Signal employee, in terms of pay, advancement opportunities, benefits and company seniority," the Indian workers make two-thirds as much of the union wage scale. Is Signal, or Northrop Grumman passing on that savings to the Navy? Aside from wages, the Indian workers cannot avail themselves of one of the most important rights that U.S. workers enjoy: the right to union representation. They are and will remain in the lowest imaginable position as “employees at will”—if they complain or fail to perform as their supervisors demand they are not simply dismissed, they can be deported. For H2B visa workers there are precious few protections against exploitation, wage cheating or any other type of abuse they are likely to encounter.
Is this what our lawmakers mean when they say that these special visa workers are doing work that American workers won’t do?
It certainly is, if you mean that American workers won’t willingly subject themselves to the depredations of living in remodeled shipping containers, sleeping a dozen to a room on bunks and living for prolonged periods of time without their families. But, then again, these are conditions that no worker should be expected to endure regardless of their country of origin.
No doubt Signal cited the unavailability of domestic skilled labor in its application for H2B visa authority to the U.S. Department of Labor. And, the bureaucratic process doesn’t really care whether the cause of the labor shortage is actually the bumbling, ineptitude, corruption and incompetence of the government’s response to the area’s reconstruction needs. American workers—with families, children and infrastructure needs—have not returned to the Gulf. It is a classic chicken and egg problem. The area will languish as long the quality of life there is unacceptable; and the quality of life in the region will be substandard as long as there are insufficient numbers of ordinary Americans who are willing to live there.
The repercussions of neglected reconstruction in the Gulf Coast are much more widespread than most Americans realize. One important aspect of the fallout has been to create even more jobs that Americans won’t do.
P.S. For further enlightenment on the plight of the H2B Indian workers, read the press statements and clips below:
PORT ARTHUR, TEXAS – 12 JUNE 2007 – Signal International has been awarded a major subcontract from Northrop Grumman Ship Systems to build modules for the construction of a new San Antonio LPD 17-class U.S. Navy ship.
The contract was secured just a few days after Signal’s successful delivery in May 2007 of the hull unit for SBM Atlantia’s Neptune SeaStar Tension Leg Platform. Most of the work on the LPD modules will be performed in Signal’s Orange and Port Arthur, Texas yards beginning in June 2007 and lasting through 2011.
According to Dick Marler, CEO and President of Signal International, “Our Orange Texas facility has a 450,000 sq. ft. of covered panel line fabrication facility equipped with the most advanced machinery for heavy fabrication.” Already established as one of the primary employers in the area, Signal will be expanding beyond its current workforce by a total of 1000 employees at the two Texas locations.
The LPD 17 Amphibious Transport Dock Ships are 208.4 meters (684 feet) long and 31.9 meters (105 feet) wide and will be the functional replacement for the existing LPD 4, LSD 36, LKA 113, and LST 1179 Classes of Amphibious ships. The new ship’s mission is to embark, transport, and land elements of a landing force in an assault by helicopters, landing craft, and amphibious vehicles to conduct special operations, or expeditionary warfare missions.
Signal International, LLC. is a leading marine and fabrication company headquartered in Pascagoula, MS that currently employs over 2,500 total workers in its two yards in Mississippi and four in Texas. Signal has a sales backlog of over $200 million, and is offering long-term employment opportunities at all Signal locations.
"Despite intensive and comprehensive recruitment efforts we just were not able to find sufficient numbers of qualified workers," Sanders said by telephone from Signal's corporate headquarters in Pascagoula, Miss., where 290 workers from India also will be employed.
The 300 workers will come to Orange on temporary work visas and live in a community of modular housing currently under construction at the Signal shipyard.
"The community will consist of 18 buildings, 13 of which will be bunk houses, two lounges, a laundry trailer and a shower trailer to augment shower facilities built into the bunk houses," Sanders said.
A New Orleans catering company will provide Indian food to both the Orange workers and those in Pascagoula, he said.
Recruiters located the workers with the assistance of an employee brokerage agent in India.
Signal superintendents traveled there to conduct interviews and skill tests of the future employees, who speak English, Sanders said.
"The (Indian) workers will have the full status of any other Signal employee, in terms of pay, advancement opportunities, benefits and company seniority," he said.
Indian H2B visa workers imprisoned, enslaved in Gulf Coast
by Signal H2B Employees Organization Sunday, Mar. 11, 2007 at 6:19 AM
A Mississippi company imprisoned its workers in a pre-dawn raid Friday morning, holding six workers against their will. As of Friday afternoon all six workers had been released from captivity by the Signal Corporation. Following is a Letter from "Signal H2B Employees Organization", the organization of H2B guest workers from India working for Signal International, LLC.
(IMPORTANT: Please note that the following letter was written while the six workers were still imprisoned by the company, and that they have since been released.)
We are more than 300 Indian workers in Pascagoula, Mississippi. We came here from different parts of India with H2B visas to work as welders and fitters. Our employer is Signal International LLC, a marine fabrication company in Mississippi and Texas.
We paid $15,000 to $20,000 to come to the United States. We paid this money to a US lawyer working on behalf of the company and to Indian recruiters. We have proof of this payment. For some of us, this is a lifetime of earnings in India. We all sold our property and our houses to come and work for Signal.
In India we were promised that we will be getting green cards and permanent residency. This was not true. We were given temporary H2B visas which expire on July 31. We do not know if we will be extended on a new visa. We cannot recover the money we have spent on the visa in less than two years.
We have been treated like animals here. We have been threatened with termination and salary reduction. We are living in isolation. Visitors are not allowed in the camps. We live 24 men in one container, with two bathrooms for all of us. We cannot make any complaints to the company.
Last month, one of our fellow workers from Punjab was threatened with termination and was about to be sent back to India. The situation gave him so much stress that he had a heart attack. We collected money ourselves to the send the body back to India.
Even with these threats, we have formed a committee to protect ourselves from the company. We are SIGNAL H2B EMPLOYEES ORGANIZATION. But the company is not in agreement with this.
Early this morning, the company conducted a raid in the camp. Company representatives came with armed security guards and took six workers. The company locked the workers in a room and told them they will be sent back to India. One of our fellow workers ran into the bathroom. Guards ran after him. This man had sold all of his possessions for this visa. When he came out of the bathroom his arm was bloody “ we believe he attempted suicide. He was taken to the hospital.
Right now the workers are still trapped in the room. While you are reading this, 200 of us are standing outside the room where the workers are locked up. We are monitoring to ensure that the company does not force these workers to go back to India. We have collected 150 signatures on the spot. We have formed this committee here to defend ourselves.
This is a story told by the Indian workers in their own words. Signal claims to have recruited for local U.S. workers but was unable to hire qualified U.S. citizens.
Anthony Volentine, business manager with Pipe Fitters Local No. 195 said he was concerned Signal didn't contact local unions about filling the positions.
"I definitely know of workers here who should fit the bill of what they're looking for and I sure didn't get a call from Signal," Volentine said.
Metal Trades Department, AFL-CiO • 815 16th Street, NW •Washington, DC 20006
Phone: 202-508-3705 • Fax: 202-508-3706 • email: metaltradesweb@aol.com
