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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.
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.
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