U.S. sues over treatment of workers from India, Thailand

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A U.S. federal agency has sued over unequal treatment of more than 500 workers from India recruited to work at shipyards in Mississippi and Texas and over 200 Thai farm laborers brought to Hawaii and Washington state, officials said on Wednesday.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said the workers were forced to live in substandard housing and exploited with fees, so that some had net earnings of nearly nothing.

The EEOC said the treatment of the Thai and Indian workers amounted to human trafficking, even though they were brought to the country with work visas.

"Foreign workers should be treated as equals when working in the United States, not as second-class citizens," said Olophius Perry, Los Angeles district director for the EEOC.

Last year Mordechai Orian, the head of the labor firm that recruited the Thai farm workers, was arrested and charged in federal court with forced labour conspiracy.

The EEOC said in lawsuits filed on Tuesday that Orian's Beverly Hills-based Global Horizons Inc recruited the Thai laborers to work on six farms in Hawaii and two in Washington state between 2003 and 2007.

The workers earned about $8.50 to $9.50 an hour to harvest crops, but many of them were forced to pay recruitment fees of between $12,000 and $25,000, EEOC officials said.

Some of the workers had to take out high interest loans and were charged for lodging and food, officials said.

"They were nickeled and dimed to the point where they really didn't have any pay," said Anna Park, regional attorney for the EEOC Los Angeles office.

Also, workers had their passports taken and were threatened with deportation if they complained, officials said.

An attorney for Orian could not be reached for comment.

EEOC officials said some of the Thai workers have returned to their home country, and that the total number of workers affected could number 400.

In the case of the 500 Indian workers, the EEOC alleged in a lawsuit in Mississippi that Gulf Coast marine services company Signal International LLC subjected them to segregated facilities and discriminatory treatment.

The Indian men paid recruiters up to $20,000 to come to the United States. When they arrived they were forced to pay rent for crowded housing in fenced camps, according to the EEOC.