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Loading...Outrageous Exploitation of Hundreds of Filipino Teachers in the U.S.
Hundreds of Filipino teachers lured to teach in Louisiana schools under our country’s guest-worker program were cheated out of tens of thousands of dollars and forced into massive debt, unsavory living conditions and, in effect, indentured servitude, according to a class action lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on August 5.
The story of this shocking treatment is something you might expect to hear from bygone days, or from some unpoliced, corrupt part of the world. No, this is the United States today. This is how we welcome our “Guest-workers.”
Abusive Treatment Of Our “Guests”
Around 350 teachers, hoping to secure a better future for their families, were hired through a placement service for Filipinos. They began arriving in 2007, and were placed primarily in hard-to-staff inner-city or rural schools. (Why do we like to hire foreign nationals to do the jobs that no one else wants?)
Nearly all of them borrowed heavily to pay fees of $16,000 or more – several times the average salary in the Philippines. Once they arrived, the placement service demanded up to 30% of their salaries for the first two years, they had to live in substandard housing, and they were forbidden to bring any family members with them.
“It was close to slavery,” said Mary Bauer, lead attorney in the lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles by the SPLC, the American Federation of Teachers and the law firm Covington and Burling. “There was fraud on a number of levels here.”
International Human Trafficking
The suit charges racketeering, human trafficking, extortion and mail and wire fraud by two employment agencies, one in the U.S. and one in the Philippines, and also names three former or current East Baton Rouge Parish school system who helped recruit Filipino teachers.
Not The First Time
It’s happened before. A report published in 2009 by the American Federation of Teachers cited the prosecution of several recruiting companies and three Texas school administrators on charges related to smuggling immigrants and visa fraud. According to the report, 19,000 foreign teachers were working in the United States on temporary visas in 2007, and the number is rising steadily. Several American school districts are turning increasingly to overseas recruiting to find teachers willing to work in their hard-to-staff schools.
How can it be that in this day and age we tolerate this abusive treatment towards our “guests”? For they had no choice but to keep paying, since the initial fees left them deeply in debt, and the contractors held on to their visas.
We must put an end to this shameful treatment now.
Read more: american federation of teachers, east baton rouge school system, education, filipino teachers, guest workers, h-1 visas, louisiana, southern poverty law center
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+ add your ownwhy o why are this Filipinos (H1-visa temporary workers) suing our public school district for 5 million dollars? Is it the VESTED INTEREST they will received? We are already having a school budget crisis this coming 2011... Now they want to extort money from our school system? what's going on here? They claim that our school did force-labor (slavery), human trafficked using ship containers, held at gun point, threaten to deport them. Yet, they make up to 60,000 dollars a year plus another 30 percent on fringed benefits which is close to 85,000 US dollars a year. How can someone sue their employer or school if they have a very good paying job. Plus their families and love ones are here in Louisiana. We also have document evidence that they filed for Hurricane Katrina relief knowingly that none of them were affected. What is this? trickery? We should stopped them from extorting monetary compensation illegally from our schools. This will definitely affect the budget for 2011... BEWARE!
What a way to treat a person. If there are American people that don't want to teach in those schools, then we do need to hire people from other areas.
But to not let them have their families with them is just wrong. We move people and their families when we hire a person that doesn't live in the area of the job.
good living conditions are also needed to do a job well. It is hard enough to work in a country that is rude to you and unfamiliar at the same time.
People can only get jobs if there is space to hire. If an American wanted the job, they would have it. Then there world be no reason to hire a 'guest worker'.
sigh... my previous comment was cut off at the smilies... and it was a long post.
im not going to type it again...
O_O
-_-
The Filipino teachers from EBR and other schools in Louisiana have taught us how to skid away from financial obligations (signed contracts). After getting a good paying job up to 60k a year and plus 30% benefits, they have the audacity to sue their own employer (school) for 5 million dollars. Most Filipino teachers didn't even know that their names were dragged in the lawsuit. After they knew what happen to their names, they immediately sign an affidavit (manifesto) to opt-out (not join) in the class action lawsuit. We feel sorry for them because they will tagged forever with this lawsuit and will find it difficult to get a job in any school in the US. DC fired close to 300 teachers and gave notices to thousands of teachers due to budget cuts. Now, the school have something to cut them out too.
Yes it is a horrible crime that these teachers were treated in such a way. I can't believe that the government even allowed it to happen in the first place.
I find this outrageous treatment of foreign nationals who are NOT needed here. There are MANY qualified unemployed teachers perfectly willing to work in these areas. They are not CONSIDERED for the positions especially in the locales cited because they need a living wage, they want to follow the Philosophy of Education components of their teaching licenses as legally required and tend to support unions. Most of these parishes have been privatized through charter schools and aren't truly public schools anymore. I hope the Phillapinos win their class action and that the expense breaks the charter schools' charters so the free, equal access that ALL children are entitled to become available through truly public and accountable to the public schools. The Phillapinos are not the only persons harmed in these situations. Charters discriminate against disabled students in particular and are not any more effective in educating the cherry-picked students than prior schooling situations. Restore the Commons here, respect our guest workers by encouraging their home countries to respect human rights there and employ them gainfully in their home countries to improve their peoples' living conditions there. And let's make sure we do the same for our people here at home.
MARTA, please soften your heart and talk to people so that you can understand more about their hopes and feelings and desires. It is easy to believe stereotyped ideas of what we have been told, without truly understanding the human issues that are in play. I feel deeply ashamed when people are abused and used, when they have been led to believe they will find fairness and be able to better themselves. I believe in equality for all people and this does not mean we can hog all the wealth to ourselves, just because we were lucky enough to be born in one of the 'lucky countries. 'n this global world we must learn to love our neighbours we will not survive as a planet.
Sue L. writes: "There is really something wrong with our educational system when there are that many jobs that go begging unless we find guest workers to fill them."
You're right. But it's not just something wrong with the educational system. There are many things wrong with our society. It would take a book to examine it all.
I know one thing that would make a big difference. Students succeed when they feel that someone cares, whether that is parent, teacher, aide, clergy or neighbor. More adult mentors, smaller student-teacher ratios and communities that nurture their young make a difference. Kids who have this support come to school to learn, making the school a place where teachers can do their job and not just fight to survive. Most tough schools are in poor areas. Even a poor area can band together to help kids, if they really work at it.
This is terrible and unjust to these Filipino teachers who are trying to build a better life for themselves. This kind of thing should not be happening in the US but it still is, unfortunately. My second issue with this story is why we must find foreign guest workers to teach in difficult schools. There is really something wrong with our educational system when there are that many jobs that go begging unless we find guest workers to fill them.
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