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Interested
Joined: 10 Feb 2003
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 Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 9:40 pm Post subject: Widespread abuse of workers by US contractors in Iraq |
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In his resignation letter last June, Owen told First Kuwaiti and U.S. State Department officials that his managers physically assaulted and beat the construction workers, demonstrated little regard for worker safety, and routinely breached security.
And it was all happening smack in the middle of the U.S.-controlled Green Zone, he said -- right under the nose of the State Department that had quietly awarded the controversial embassy contract in July 2005.
Owen also complained of poor sanitation, squalid living conditions and medical malpractice in the labour camps where several thousand low-paid migrant workers lived. Those workers, recruited on the global labour market from the Philippines, India, Pakistan and other poor south Asian countries, earned as little as 10 to 30 dollars a day. As with many U.S.-funded contractors, First Kuwaiti prefers importing labour because it views Iraqi workers as a security headache not worth the trouble. |
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Some contractors, many working as subcontractors to Halliburton /KBR in Iraq, were found to be using deceptive, bait-and-switch hiring practices and charging recruiting fees that indebted low-paid migrant workers for many months or even years to their employers. Contractors were also accused of providing substandard, crowded sleeping quarters, serving poor food, and circumventing Iraqi immigration procedures.
While the Pentagon declines to specifically name those contractors found to be doing business in this way, it also acknowledged in an Apr. 19 memorandum that it was a widespread practice among contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan to take away workers' passports. Holding onto employee passports -- a direct violation of U.S. labour trafficking laws -- helped stop workers from leaving war-torn Iraq or taking better jobs with other contractors. |
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| The Pentagon has yet to announce any penalty for those found to be in violation of U.S. labour trafficking laws or contract requirements. |
http://electroniciraq.net/news/2575.shtml
Our resident anti-anti-American is sure to take umbrage.... |
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Interested
Joined: 10 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 9:48 pm Post subject: |
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From part 2:
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Like Owen, Mayberry immediately sensed things weren't right when he boarded a First Kuwaiti flight on Mar. 15 to Baghdad.
At the airport in Kuwait City, Mayberry said, he saw a person behind a counter hand First Kuwaiti managers a passenger manifest, an envelope of money and a stack of boarding passes to Dubai. The managers then handed out the boarding passes to Mayberry and 50 or so new First Kuwaiti labourers, mostly Filipinos.
"Everyone was told to tell customs and security that they were flying to Dubai," Mayberry said in an interview. Once the group passed the guards, they went upstairs and waited by the McDonald's for First Kuwaiti staff to unlock a door -- Gate 26 -- that led to an unmarked, ageing white 52-seat jet.
"All the workers had their passports taken away by First Kuwaiti," Mayberry claimed, and while he knew the plane was bound for Baghdad, he's not so sure the others were aware of their destination. The Asian labourers began asking questions about why they were flying north and the jet wasn't flying east over the ocean, he said. "I think they thought they were going to work in Dubai."
One former First Kuwaiti supervisor acknowledged that the company holds passports of many workers in Iraq -- a violation of U.S. contracting. |
http://electroniciraq.net/news/2580.shtml |
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