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By Jem Palo
Washington, D.C.–This is a familiar story: Filipino workers lured into coming to the United States in search of the American Dream, and instead experiencing labor exploitation. Every day, all over the world, human trafficking is a scourge that claims many victims.
Whether exploited shipyard workers, or teachers deceived into promising careers, such is the plight of many Filipino migrant workers who come to the U.S., hoping to make a better life for their families back in the Philippines.
The latest incident involves workers at the Grand Isle Shipyard (GIS) oilfield company in New Orleans. On February 22 to 25, a team from Igniting Leadership and Action with Women (ILAW) went to the homes of former GIS workers and listened to their stories. Ilaw is a Filipino term for light, or illumination.
As part of their campaign to promote justice for these workers, ILAW, Gabriela USA and other Filipino advocates shared victims’ stories at the St. Episcopal Church in DC on March 17.
“We were shocked, most of their stories were really compelling…We knew we had to share it with our local areas,” said Joanna Quiambao of ILAW.
Most GIS shipyard workers are skilled welders, scaffolders and construction workers recruited from the Philippines with promises of high salaries. But former workers who have come out in the open disputed this. When asked for an official statement, representatives from GIS declined to comment, citing a gag order.
ILAW Accounts
According to accounts Quiambao and her team gathered, workers had to bear heavy construction work of 10,000-ton structures for as low as $5 an hour, working 10 to 14 hours a day. Sometimes on weekends, they were even made to clean the cars or garages of their CEOs.
As guest workers in the U.S., they were given fraudulent Social Security numbers, their meager pay often saddled with deductions, and they never saw the remittances sent back home to their families. Their passports were taken from them. They were threatened to be sent back home if they complained about their labor conditions.
Four to six workers shared a 10 ft. by10 ft. bunk room at the shipyard site itself on the water. It was a room small enough to not even allow “nightmares,” lest they bump their heads on the ceiling, as Quiambao recounted the workers’ stories.
Remarked Susan Pineda, also from ILAW: “They say human trafficking is a form of modern day slavery…Professional Filipinos are being brought to the United States with the promise of good jobs. But they end up being exploited. It’s not so easy to accept seeing our kababayans (Filipino word for fellow citizens) suffer these forms of human trafficking.”
The community sharing, mixed with artistic performances and video screening, was held at a symbolic time in Philippine history. March 17 marks the 18th death anniversary of Flor Contemplacion. Contemplacion, a Filipina domestic worker, was executed in Singapore for allegedly murdering the child she was taking care of. Contemplacion’s tragic story mirrors the struggle of many Overseas Filipino Workers: suffering the worst of conditions abroad to make a better life for their families.
