‘Labor trafficking’ Archives
‘Human Trafficking is Slavery’
Even by US-Funded Contractors in Iraq
....And US-funded contractors taking away passports from low-paid migrant workers in Iraq is a crime under US law. That's a red flag indication of labor trafficking. The Pentagon found the practice is/was widespread under KBR..... Why wasn't any subcontractor busted? This is a very important question.... read on. (more…)
‘Deplorable’ Conditions for US Contract Laborers in Iraq
Just cleaning up my notes and found this inspection of a labor camp for the US Army dining facility at Camp Marez. Dated February 2005, most of the people living there were low-wage workers from the Philippines and Turkey. "Filthy" is the common word summarizing the housing where workers were kept under this multi-billion-dollar US contract held [...]
Congress Urged to Look at Labor Trafficking
GovExec reiterates POGO's press release today by outlining the group's 13 priorities for Congress in the coming session. Among those priorities, the often celebrated, self-appointed, Washington-based watchdog group, aka, the Project on Government Oversight, singles out labor trafficking under US contracts in Iraq: Highlighting a little-known [...]
Pentagon Claims Widespread Practice: Contractors have been Taking Passports from Workers on the Battlefield
by David Phinney Dec. 17, 2006 -- The Pentagon announced last spring that contractors in Iraq were taking and holding civilian employee passports. Why? To prevent employees from "jumping" to other firms.... "among other things." Did the "other things" include discouraging laborers from escaping harsh treatment, non-payment of salaries, [...]
KBR Gives a Pass to Costly Insurance Requirements in Iraq
by David Phinney Dec. 17. 2006 -- I have a curious one-page memo, "Blanket Insurance Waiver," which apparently allows Halliburton/KBR to waive insurance requirements -- read cut "costs" -- to potential subcontractors working under Halliburton's sweeping military logistics contract, known as LOGCAP. Four top-level KRR managers approved this [...]
Greetings from Bangkok
Lots of new things to report from my travels to Manila. I met with government officials and former workers with First Kuwaiti Trading and Contracting. I am told that First Kuwaiti is on a Philippine agency "watch list" for numerous complaints from workers about alleged labor trafficking into Iraq and horrid working and living conditions there. The [...]
Labor Trafficking
Quoted by BBC. "Pakistanis becoming fodder for Iraq war machine" I don't have a clue to how this was picked up from a story I wrote more than a year ago, but the pickup is on the jump. Excerpt from report by Pakistani newspaper The News website on 13 November, by Shahid Husain, headlined "Pakistanis becoming fodder for Iraq war machine" Karachi: A [...]
Babylon Rising in the Jet Age
Things began looking more sketchier than ever to John Owens as he boarded a nondescript white jet on his way back to Iraq in March 2005 following some R&R in Kuwait city. Working as a general construction foreman for First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting, the lead builder for the new $592-million US embassy in Baghdad, Owen remembers being [...]
Press Release
The news from the $592-million embassy project rising up along the Tigris is not pretty. Low wage workers from South Asia are being smuggled in from Kuwait to help push up the profit margins of the contractor, First Kuwaiti Trading and Contracting. Once there, First Kuwaiti managers are said to physically assault their workers, and provide paltry [...]
Asian Workers Smuggled to Build World’s Largest Embassy
Oct. 17, 2006. CorpWatch, Alternet, Inter Press Service, Asia Times, Counterpunch and others (October 2006). Recipient of Project Censored award and Online News Association fiinalist for investigative journalism. Helped trigger investigations by US Justice [...]
