Foreign Guestworkers who were Trafficked to New Orleans Win Decision in Suit Against Luxury Hotel Chain

-JEN HERRMANN
During our orientation with the People's Organizing Committee, the organizers presented the problems guestworkers were facing: they had essentially become slaves in a new system of slavery. Elisa and Emily worked on researching this issue, and you can see Elisa's comments at her section below entitled "Research for Lawsuit on Behalf of Non-Immigrant Workers." I'm happy to report the following update.

From the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice, via email 5/18/07:

NEWS FLASH! NEWS FLASH! NEWS FLASH!

Foreign Guestworkers who were Trafficked to New Orleans Through False Promises Win Landmark Decision in Suit Against Luxury Hotel Chain

Ruling is one step in the struggle to end modern-day slavery, say victorious plaintiffs

Guestworkers who were trafficked into the country to work for Decatur Hotels, LLC in atrocious conditions had a major victory this week. After more than a year of mass meetings, company intimidation of workers, and retaliatory firings 82 Latin American guestworkers obtained a precedent-setting legal victory that provides relief to tens of thousands of foreign guestworkers on H-2B visas who typically are forced to pay exorbitant fees to obtain low-wage, temporary jobs in the United States.

The ruling in Castellanos-Contreras, et al., v. Decatur Hotels, LLC, et al., is an important precedent for the more than 100,000 H-2B guestworkers who enter the United States legally each year and serves as a strike against a system that members of the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity describe as modern-day slavery. The Alliance is a guestworker-led organization dedicated to challenging the rampant abuse in the guestworker program and to fighting for the rights of all workers in post-Katrina New Orleans.

As part of a larger guestworker organizing campaign spearheaded by the Alliance, workers from Bolivia, Peru and the Dominican Republic met secretly over three months to address the problems they had been facing under the H-2B visa program.

“I paid $3,800 to come to work in this hotel because my daughter has cancer, and I wanted to be able to get her treatment. My recruiter told me I would have a full time job plus plenty of overtime. They promised great living conditions and a good working environment,” reflected Rodolfo Baez, one of the Decatur guestworkers, a leader of the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity. “When I got here I found myself paying to stay in a moldy hotel room with three other people, working 25 hours per week at $6.02/hr., and with no way to work anywhere else to supplement my pay because of the restrictions on my visa.”

Jose Sanchez, plaintiff in the case and worker leader in the Alliance, explained,“I worked in Mr. Quinn’s hotels for next to nothing because I had to earn enough money to make back what I paid to get here. Even though I was so tired at the end of the day, I would go to the guestworker alliance meetings at night because I knew that this was important not just for our group, but for all guestworkers in the U.S.”

In July of 2006, the Decatur workers confronted Mr. Quinn about their inhumane living and working conditions. The workers presided over a meeting in which they demanded that Quinn stop participating in slavery and forbid his labor recruiters from retaliating against the workers’ families. Their thirteen demands also included translation of their employment contracts into Spanish, access to health care, English classes, and reimbursement of the money they paid up front to the labor recruiters. The guestworkers also requested proof that Quinn and Decatur Hotels did in fact attempt to recruit Black survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

Because Quinn refused to meet most of their demands, the workers retained the legal assistance of local civil rights attorney, Tracie Washington, president of the Louisiana Justice Institute, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the National Immigration Law Center. The workers filed the lawsuit in August 2006 alleging that Decatur and Quinn violated the Fair Labor Standards Act when the company failed to reimburse them for the inflated costs of their trip to New Orleans, including airfare, visa processing costs, recruiters’ fees, and other related expenses.

“When we found out the realities of this H-2B visa program, we decided that we had to take action, not only for ourselves, but for the other workers from our home countries who were trying to get jobs through these same recruiters,” said Ricardo Deheza, another member of the Alliance. “The recruiter in Bolivia told me that I would be able to make plenty of money to support my parents, so they took out a loan against their home in order for me to come to work at Decatur. For the first month I was unable to pay anything on this loan because I did not get enough work. My parents encouraged me to come home because I could make more money there. I decided to stay to fight for a more just system and I still have not been able to pay the loan off. This decision will be a huge relief for my parents.”

”This is a great victory for the Decatur workers and a great first step in fighting against the abuses of all the H2B employers,” stated Jacob, one Alliance member from India. “The workers at Signal International, LLC fully support the struggles the Decatur workers went through to make this decision possible. It will help all of us guestworkers being exploited and enslaved by these corporations.”

Eugenio, an Alliance member from Mexico working in Westlake, LA added, “The way the employers treat us makes me sick. I want to congratulate the Decatur Hotel workers because this shows that when we fight collectively for our rights, we win.”

This decision comes at a critical time as Congress and the White House are designing an expanded temporary worker program as part of larger immigration legislation.

“As President Bush and Congress seek to expand the temporary worker program, this and other organizing efforts by guestworkers across the Gulf Coast have unveiled the brutal realities of the H-2B visa program,” said Saket Soni, Lead Organizer of the New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice.

The workers who lead the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity have endured exploitation under the current H-2B program akin to that experienced by workers under the abusive Bracero program, which operated from 1942 to 1964. Despite this, Senate Democrats and Republicans announced a backroom deal they reached with the White House that creates a massive program of close to a half a million new guestworkers who will be lured into the US by unscrupulous recruiters and subcontractors working for US employers. Although these new guestworkers will have a “portable” visa and supposedly are “free” to change employers they can only go from one abusive employer to another one who has been certified by the DOL to accept guestworkers. The DOL currently rubber stamps employers’ labor certification petitions and approves even those who, like Quinn & Decatur Hotels, do very little to recruit U.S. workers and abide by US labor law.

Hotel tycoon F. Patrick Quinn III, president of Decatur, and hundreds of other employers across the hurricane-wracked Gulf Coast and throughout the nation are taking advantage of guestworkers to fill jobs that are often otherwise filled by Black workers in a race to the bottom. Many turn a blind eye as guestworker recruiters rob migrant workers of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“We want to ensure there are strong labor protections for all workers and that U.S. workers, especially African-Americans, are not displaced by employers who simply want cheaper labor and to exploit us,” added Daniel Castellanos-Contreras, plaintiff and worker leader in the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity. “We demand that government officials and immigrants rights advocates consult those of us who are living the realities of the current H-2B visa program before any new temporary worker program is created. Policymakers would think twice about expanding this program if they had to spend one day in our shoes.”

A link to the courts opinion in Castellanos-Contreras, et al., v. Decatur Hotels, LLC, et al., (Case No. 06-4340) may be found at: http://www.splcenter.org/pdf/dynamic/legal/20070517114318302.pdf

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For More information about the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity please contact trabajadoreshuespedes@gmail.com