Benders Shipbuilding Illegally Fires Mexican Guest Workers
by Nick Monday, Dec. 17, 2007 at 10:06 AM
nickcooper--at--indymedia.org

Mexican Guestworkers Call on Department of Labor to Investigate their Employer Benders Shipbuilding and Repair Co., Inc after being illegally fired Threatened with Deportation and Intimidated by Company Security Agents Mexican H2B visa workers charge Bender Shipbuilding & Repair Co., Inc with civil rights violations, breach of contract, and fraud; File EEOC Discrimination Charge and Call on US DOL to investigate

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32 Mexican welders who were hired to work at Benders Shipbuilding and Repairs and brought to Alabama on H2B visas were upon arrival in Alabama subjected to a discriminatory welding test that pushed more 25% of them out of work and out of legal status.

We left our families in Mexico out of economic necessity full of hope based on the promises of work made to us by representatives of Benders Shipbuilding and Repair Co., Inc. We quit our full-time jobs, sold valuables and took out loans to come here with the security that we had been tested, qualified and hired to work in the United States at Benders Shipbuilding for the contract period of our visas.

Workers, some of whom have as much as 40 years of welding experience report that they spent over $600.00 each to come to the US after being hired by Benders representatives in Mexico. After testing in Alabama the company told them that they didn't know how to weld and even accused them of bribing their own representative in Mexico to certify their tests.

On December 11, with the help of the Alliance of Guestworekrs for Dignity, a membership based worker led organization defending the rights of H2B visa workers in the gulf coast, workers submitted a petition requesting reimbursement of their expenses and a meeting with the company. In the meeting that took place that night in the Benders Personnel office in Mobile, AL, company representative Billy Wiik insulted workers telling them that he didn't want to hear their sad stories and threatened them that if they didn't leave the country in the morning he would have them deported. He then had a Benders shipyard security guard follow workers back to the safe haven they had moved to the night before.

"We asked the company for a small thing, we wanted to have a dialog with them and they sent an armed security guard to follow us home. It scared me because who knows what these people are capable of," said one worker later that night.

Guestworkers quickly reported these abuses to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Mobile where they filed a formal complaint against the company on behalf of themselves and hundreds of other foreign workers. The complaint states that they believed that there were being discriminated against because of national origin, as American workers are not subjected to multiple testes as a condition of their continued employment.

Workers point out that the company violated their employment contract that by failing to provide them with work. Workers and advocates also point out that Benders could be guilty of defrauding the US Government by brining 25% more workers than they need and creating a glut in the market.

"We want to put a stop to this kind of practice not just for us but for all guestworkers. It's not just that bosses should be able to just throw us out like garbage when they decide they don't need us. Were calling on the DOL to investigate this abuse but also to change the visa so that if our employer abuses us and we can't work for him we're not faced with the choice of becoming criminals or returning home to even more debt and desperation than we left."

Workers and advocates challenge federal officials to recognize that the H2B program is creating slave-like conditions for workers across the Gulf Coast. "Thousands of guestworkers have arrived to work for US companies after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita," said Daniel Castellanos, organizer with the Alliance of Guest Workers for Dignity, a Gulf Coast-wide organization of guestworkers. "I am a guestworker and I know the realities of the H2B visa," said Castellanos. "We are brought here on false promises. Our members report being sold, being kidnapped, being told they are owned. Meanwhile survivors of Katrina and Rita are still shut out of work two years later. The federal government is allowing this. They've traded the old slaves for new slaves."

Jacob Horwitz of the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice called Benders' actions "immoral, unjust, illegal – but unfortunately, widespread. Benders' abuses tell us we need policy changes in Washington DC. But meanwhile, DOL, who certifies these employers' labor certification needs to investigate what's going across the gulf coast. "

www.neworleansworkerjustice.org/

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