Printer-friendly versionHundreds of guest workers are lured to the United States under false pretenses. They are ruthlessly exploited by the labor contractors who bring them here. Their U.S. employer turns a blind eye to this exploitation. And the contractor bullies the workers into paying fees and taking out loans that keep them in virtual slavery.
Does this sound like a big-city sweatshop? Maybe a farm preying on low-wage labor?
Actually, the workers in this case are teachers—350 Filipino guest workers brought to this country to teach in Louisiana public schools. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and Covington & Burling LLP have filed a lawsuit on their behalf. The defendants include the two labor contracting companies and several Louisiana school officials who helped keep the teachers in servitude.
The lawsuit accuses the defendants of human trafficking, racketeering and fraud—all to fill teaching jobs. The use of what the government calls “H-1B” guest workers to recruit teachers has grown sharply in the last decade. The number of overseas-trained teachers hired in the United States now stands at more than 19,000. In 2009, Texas had the most of these guest workers, with 4,424, followed by New York, California, Maryland and Louisiana.
How did the Filipino teachers get lured into indentured servitude? They were first asked to pay a hefty fee for the privilege of working in the United States—a privilege they thought would bring them good-paying jobs. Once the fee was paid, they were dinged into paying more fees and taking out loans that kept them beholden to the labor contractors. If they refused, they’d be sent home and lose all the money they had already invested.
“We were herded into a path, a slowly constricting path, where the moment you feel the suspicion that something is not right, you’re already way past the point of no return,” said Ingrid Cruz, one of the Filipino teachers.
In other words, they were conned. And the con continues because currently there are very few standards that govern the way teachers are recruited from abroad. The problem goes beyond criminal exploitation. Many of these teachers were recruited to fill positions at hard-to-staff U.S. schools. Once they arrived they were often thrown into situations where they faced stressful language and cultural barriers. Many teachers were put in these untenable situations with no training or mentoring.
The abuses in Louisiana raise all kinds of troubling issues. If even highly educated people can be exploited this readily under our guest worker laws, imagine what is happening to those who are not as educated and not as willing to fight back? And if school districts are so eager to offload their responsibilities as employers, what does that say about how they handle their responsibilities toward students?
Bringing qualified immigrant teachers to the United States can be very helpful. These teachers often possess language or professional skills that are in short supply. And foreign teachers can expose U.S. students to a rich variety of cultural views. But the current system for bringing these teachers into the country corrupts school administrators and frustrates the education process. And as SPLC Legal Director Mary Bauer put it, it is a rip-off waiting to happen. “It’s clear,” she says, “that the very structure of the program lends itself to pervasive worker abuse.”
Comments
This is disgusting. You would
This is disgusting. You would think that if we did not have enought teachers to fill the positions in the United States then the government would be decent enough to pay people who wanted the jobs.
Shame on you Louisiana!
Shame on you Louisiana!
These scams are happening all
These scams are happening all over the US. And not just with guest workers. They're scamming Americans too.
Big business has been hit hard by the Great Recession, and they're looking for way to cut costs...and sometimes gouge their workers.
Instead of hiring you as an employee, they have you sign a contract as an independent contractor, even though you're probably not really an independent contractor.
This way, the employer dodges all their employment taxes AND dumps all their expenses for benefits onto you. No health coverage. No work comp (unless you buy your own) and no liability. And if you have COBRA and homeowners, neither of them cover work-related stuff.
They get you to sign a draconian contract that lets them abuse you like these poor teachers. One scam is to get to you to commit to doing work for them that you are not trained for, then make you pay for training, which is conveniently down the hall at their other business.
Their contract may require you to "defend and hold harmless", which means if you and they get sued, you pay for their lawyer and yours. They may require you to do work for them without seeing the scope of work before agreeing to it. They may try to direct your work, which means you're an employee...or an indentured servant.
This is a royal scam. Stay away. Stay far away.
Savannah schools did this a
Savannah schools did this a couple of years ago. The company made the teachers pay to come here, charged them very high rent, then kept adding more and more fees.
I met some of these teachers.
I met some of these teachers. With the cuts we experienced here in Jefferson Parish, this group was sadly part of those let go. It will be interesting to see how the law suit plays out.
As a descendant of slaves, I
As a descendant of slaves, I am appalled at what is going on here. I know that there are qualified people in Louisiana who can teach school. What are we teaching our children, when their teachers are nothing more than slaves? That is what is going on here, as they are being forced to work for low-wages. That means someone else is benefiting from their labor and that is slavery. I worked with Asians in San Francisco who were teaching preschool children. One of the women was so stressed that she could hardly function. They were hired over other minorities, like African Americans because they worked for low wages. We in America need to clean up our own house, and stop this abuse!
With all of the teachers that
With all of the teachers that have been layed off, I don't understand the need to bring in teachers from other countries! I'm sure they are not being paid on same pay schedule as other teachers. This is reprehensible!
Something is rotten in
Something is rotten in Denmark here! Teachers all over the country are getting pink slips and we have imported 19,000 guest teachers from other countries??? You'd think we would create opportunities for U.S. teachers to fill the gap in Louisiana and elsewhere. Doesn't make any sense except to exploit lower wage folks. You go SPLC!
Sadly, the importing of
Sadly, the importing of teachers is not new. I am extremely sorry for those who were duped, but it is an ongoing practice.
There are many, many teachers
There are many, many teachers here in the United States who actively seek and cannot obtain jobs for whatever reason. I am originally from Washington State, received a Masters degree, but had to relocate to Arizona in order to achieve employment. Talk about Culture Shock! (and I did not have to leave my home country) In Washington State, teachers were being recruited from Montana and North Dakota. New York State was recruting from India.
There are many, many things that need to be fixed about the United States 'educational system'. I do feel badly these teachers were duped, but feel just as badly for teachers such as myself who bought into the 'teacher shortage' hoopla, only to find out, that was not the case at all. (and to be saddled with student loans to boot)
First of all, it is a sad
First of all, it is a sad reality that so many Filipinos want to leave the Philippines. I am a RPCV for the Philippines. I saw first hand how teachers put their hopes and dreams in some scam of an organization and had to pay a tremendous amount of money to just be given an opportunity to come here. One of our close family friends, a Filipina, recently shared with us the horror of her experience as they were brought here to the U.S. (Texas). They had no money, no food, were scared, and she even experienced an immigration raid. It was all because some scam of an organization was traffiking them to make hundreds of thousands of dollars.