Diana
I'm writing to update you on the unfolding campaign of a brave member of ours who last night escaped a labor camp to blow the whistle on his company for human trafficking and forced labor. He and a huge network of union allies here in Nashville, TN launched a major campaign today to hold his company, Vanderbilt Landscaping, LLC responsible for exploiting him and others while at the same time receiving federal stimulus dollars and state contracts. Below are two stories from today's action. I'm also attaching an appeal for support of our STRIKE fund for this brave worker while he fights to hold the company accountable, -----
Immigrant Accuses Company Of Human Trafficking
Posted: Aug 12, 2010 2:31 PM CDT Thursday, August 12, 2010 3:31 PM EST Updated: Aug 12, 2010 7:08 PM CDT Thursday, August 12, 2010 8:08 PM EST
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Mexican workers for TDOT contractor claim abuse
Last Modified: Thursday, August 12, 2010 at 5:09 p.m.
A Mexican guest worker says a landscaping company with Tennessee state contracts and a federal stimulus loan guarantee held him and fellow workers like indentured servants, confiscating their passports and subjecting them to constant surveillance by managers who were often armed.
Hilario Razura Jimenez said in an interview that he was rescued from Vanderbilt Landscaping's company housing Wednesday night by staff from the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity. He waited until everyone else was asleep before sneaking out at about midnight, he said. Staff with the New Orleans-based nonprofit were in touch with him by text message and drove out to pick him up.
Alliance executive director Saket Soni said company officials last week put another worker on a bus back to Mexico when they learned that he had been talking with their group.
A person who answered the phone at the company on Thursday said he would not comment on the allegations and refused to give his name. The company, which has $2.4 million in state Transportation Department contracts and a $900,000 a stimulus loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has offices in Smyrna and Mason.
Jimenez said he has come to the U.S. on an H2B guestworker visa twice before. Both times the pay and conditions were exploitative, but he came again because he was desperate.
The 35-year-old comes from the town of Ruiz in Nayarit, Mexico, and supports his wife and three children on what he can earn picking tobacco and beans.
"I'm suffering here, but (my family) in Mexico, they're OK. The little I send keeps them from going without," he said in Spanish. "But there comes a point where you get fed up and say, 'Enough!'"
At the company housing in Smyrna, 13 or 14 people are lodged in a small house with one bathroom and no beds, Jimenez said. Workers built their own beds, he said. They each pay $100 a month rent, which is deducted from their pay.
They routinely were driven to the office at 6 a.m. and sometimes did not return until 8 p.m., but were not paid for any of the time spent waiting for assignments, going between the office and worksites or cleaning and maintaining the equipment, Jimenez said. Paychecks were often for only about 25 hours of work a week.
Jimenez said he had to borrow money to come to the U.S. and last year he did not earn enough to pay back what he had borrowed. With interest, he owed 25,000 pesos (about $2,000) from last year's trip when he came to the U.S. this May. And he had to borrow even more money make this year's trip.
"Many people don't complain because they'll be fired, and they can't go back to Mexico because they owe lots of money in Mexico," he said. "That's why most people won't leave. They just put up with it."
On Thursday afternoon, Alliance director Soni said they were filing complaints against Vanderbilt Landscaping with the Tennessee Department of Transportation and the federal Justice and Labor departments. The complaints include allegations that the company is in violation of a number of state and federal laws, including those against trafficking, forced labor and kidnapping.
The group also held a demonstration and marched to Vanderbilt Landscaping offices in Smyrna to demand Jimenez's passport and final paycheck.
A man answering the door, whom Jimenez identified at Joffrey Vanderbilt, one of the owners, threatened to call the police, but he allowed two of the demonstrators to enter the building and retrieve the passport and check.
Marilyn Brown from the Tennessee branch of the NAACP, was one of them. She said Jimenez's passport was bundled with many others, and the man she spoke with there told her the workers had voluntarily handed over their passports for safekeeping.
Alliance organizer Daniel Castellanos, a native of Peru, said he paid $5,000 in 2006 to come to the U.S. as a guestworker helping to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. He said the entire guestworker program needs to be overhauled because it invites exploitation.
"We suffered the same or worse treatment (as Jimenez)," he said. Guestworkers are "a captive labor force - disposable."
TDOT spokeswoman Julie Oaks said in an e-mail that most of the claims made about Vanderbilt Landscaping were outside the purview of the Transportation Department, but it was preparing to review the company's payroll records.
"If the contractor is proven to be in violation of any of the TDOT specifications the department can bar them for future work," she wrote.
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Dear Allies,
As guestworkers and members of the national steering committee of the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity, we are writing with an urgent request for support. We need to raise a critical action fund for a brave group of guestworkers in Tennessee. These workers are launching a powerful campaign to expose their employers’ criminal actions. With your support we will sustain the workers’ heroic actions, support them through the retaliation we know is coming, and translate their courage into an important national policy victory. Information about how make an online check donation is below.
Our members in Tennessee come from rural Mexico. They were brought to your country, legally, as “guestworkers” on the H2B visa program. Our members report that the company that brought them seized the workers’ passports when they arrived in Tennessee, and subjected them to horrific housing and working conditions. They report that company management use threats, retaliation, and carry guns on site to create an environment of terror for the workers. Despite these conditions, the workers are organizing.
As soon as the company learned of their organizing effort, they deported one organizer, and threatened others with retaliation. But despite the threats, the visible weapons, and the surveillance, the workers are continuing to fight for their basic rights. They are now preparing to hold their employer accountable.
Please support them in their heroic efforts. Your contributions will be used for direct support in the workers’ actions. The funds will be used to help them escape to safety from their employer, and launch and run a ten day drive to hold them accountable at the state and federal level.
You can make a secure online donation to their campaign at www.nowcrj.org. You can make a contribution by writing a check to the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice with the note “Tennessee” in the memo. For more information about the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity, please visit www.nowcrj.org to read about our work with H-2B workers. You can also contact our organizer, Jacob Horwitz, at 504 452 9159, or jhorwitz@nowcrj.org.
Thank you in advance for your solidarity and support!
Daniel Castellanos
Sarvanan Chelvan
Toribio Jiménez
Aby Raju
Jose Sanchez
Members of the National Steering Committee,
Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity
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