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Washington Post Thursday
July 1, 2004
Underclass of Workers Created in Iraq
Many Foreign Laborers Receive Inferior Pay, Food and Shelter
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
KOLLAM, India -- The war in Iraq has been a windfall for Kellogg
Brown & Root Inc., the company that has a multibillion-dollar
contract to provide support services for U.S. troops. Its profits have
come thanks to the hard work of people like Dharmapalan
Ajayakumar, who until last month served as a kitchen helper at a
military base.
But Ajayakumar, 29, a former carpenter's assistant from this
coastal town, was not there by choice.
He said he was tricked into going to Iraq by a recruiting agent who
told him the job was in Kuwait. Moreover, he said, the company
skimped on expenses by not providing him and other workers with
adequate drinking water, food, health care or security for part of
their time in the war zone.
"I cursed my fate -- not having a feeling my life was secure,
knowing I could not go back, and being treated like a kind of
animal," said Ajayakumar, who worked for less than $7 a day.
Working alongside Americans trying to rebuild Iraq are an
estimated tens of thousands of foreign contractors without whom
the reconstruction could not function. Many toil for wages that are
one-tenth -- or less -- of what U.S. workers might demand, saving
millions of taxpayer dollars.
The employees were hired through a maze of recruiters and
subcontractors on several continents, making oversight and
accountability of the workforce difficult.
Pakistan is looking into reports that recruiters were illegally trying to
hire security personnel to go to Iraq. The Philippines is assessing
protection measures for its nationals after attacks killed two military
support workers. And India is conducting an investigation into the
dining service workers' allegations.
The State Department said it received a request from India for
assistance and has passed it along to the Defense Department. A
spokeswoman for the Army, which manages the KBR contract, said
the responsibility for the investigation rests with the company.
KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton Co., came to employ Ajayakumar
and other Indian workers through five levels of subcontractors and
employment agents. The company, which employs 30,000 workers
from 38 countries in support of the U.S. military, said it had been
unaware of the workers' concerns until recently.
KBR spokeswoman Patrice Mingo said the company met with
representatives of the Indian government to discuss the complaints.
For now, there is "no substantiated proof on which to take action,"
Mingo said, but the company is open to discussing the matter
further with current or former employees.
"KBR does not condone and will not tolerate any practice that
unlawfully compels subcontract employees to perform work or
remain in place against their will," Mingo said.
The reconstruction of Iraq has provided workers from developing
countries with job opportunities they might otherwise never have
had. But the vast difference in the recruiting, compensation,
accommodations and protection of some foreigners versus their
American counterparts is raising uncomfortable questions about
how companies calculate the value of a life in Iraq.
South Korean engineers working on Iraq's power grid have
complained they did not get the flak jackets and helmets issued to
U.S. co-workers. Some Filipino cleaners and other support workers
have said they were given others' spoiled food to eat. And some of
the Indian workers said they were brought in on buses with only
gauze curtains to hide them from insurgents while many other
contractors come into the country on chartered planes or in
convoys with military escorts.
"They were working under threat and fear of death," said S.
Sreejith, superintendent of police for Kollam, where the workers'
complaints were first filed. American companies "are making
money off of cheating our people."
Rep. Janice D. Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said contractors' use of multiple
layers of subcontracts makes it difficult for the U.S. government to
ensure the fair treatment of the workers it effectively employs.
"The whole area of private military contractors is very murky in
terms of accountability, chain of command and relationship to our
mission," she said, "but as you get into subcontracting it gets
murkier and murkier . . . and you can't tell what's going on."
Manpower Export Market
The Indian state of Kerala where Ajayakumar grew up is most
famous for being the center of the international spice trade in the
16th century. Today, it's known for its export of another important
commodity: manpower.
Several million expatriates from Kerala, on the southern tip of the
country, serve in the Persian Gulf region in jobs from doctors to
gardeners. The money has transformed the state from a tropical
backwater popularized in Arundhati Roy's 1997 Booker Prize-
winning novel "The God of Small Things" to a modern center of
commerce.
Ajayakumar was thrilled when a recruiting agent came to him in
June 2003 and offered to "sell" him a two-year work visa in Kuwait
for a catering company job that would pay $200 a month -- five
times what he was making at the carpenter's shop. He gladly paid
the agent's $1,800 fee, borrowing from local loan sharks,
calculating that he would still make out with significant profits.
In late July, Ajayakumar boarded a train for Mumbai along with
several dozen other Indian workers who were recruited for contract
work: Abdul Jaleel Shani, 24, who had worked at a wedding store;
brothers Abdul Aziz Hamid, 30, and Abdul Aziz Shahjahan, 28, who
were butchers; and Manzoor Haneefa Kunju, 29, and Aliyaru Kunju
Faisil, 34, who had worked at local hotels.
There, at an employment agency called Subhash Vijay Associates,
they signed some papers and were handed tickets to Kuwait.
In Kuwait City, the workers were put on a bus and told they were
going to "the border."
It didn't stop until they arrived at Q-West, a camp occupied by the
101st Airborne Division near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. There,
the men became part of the largest civilian workforce supporting
the U.S. military in history. Subhash Vijay had hired them to work
for Gulf Catering Co. of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which was
subcontracted to Alargan Group of Kuwait City, which was
subcontracted to the Event Source of Salt Lake City, which in turn
was subcontracted to KBR of Houston.
They were issued ID cards that said "Brown & Root."
In a typical U.S. government contract, there are no restrictions on
the number and "tiers" of subcontractors that can be used --
creating situations like the one that Ajayakumar and the other
Indian workers were in. The contractor, in this case KBR, often
must report only the first tier of subcontractors, meaning that the
government is often unaware of how its work gets done or by
whom. The General Accounting Office over the past decade has
raised concerns about the lack of visibility when multiple layers of
subcontractors, especially foreign subcontractors, are involved, but
the policy has not changed.
Unfriendly Surroundings
At Q-West, Ajayakumar and Shani worked the day shift scrubbing
the floors, carrying boxes and doing other odd jobs for the dining
facility. Hamid and Shahjahan worked nights chopping food and
helping the cooks. They said they were terrified by the frequent
gunfire and mortar and rocket attacks, but what really upset them
was the way they were treated by others on the base.
"The attitude of the people was not friendly at all. We were doing a
service for these people but they shouted at us and talked down to
us," Hamid said.
While their Western managers slept in air-conditioned trailers, they
were crammed into tents in 100-degree-plus temperatures. The
cooks set aside some rice and curry for them but it was not enough
and they had to supplement their food with whatever was left over
from the soldiers' meals -- which was often nothing. They were told
they could not take the filtered bottled water but instead must drink
the Iraqi tap water that was poured into aluminum buckets with
tablets of chlorine and chunks of ice. The workers would pick
through the soldiers' trash and retrieve the empty water bottles that
they would use as cups.
Ajayakumar said he threw up for weeks from the contaminated
water. He was allowed to see an Iraqi doctor who gave him one pill
-- without explaining what it was for and which did nothing to
alleviate his symptoms.
His co-workers had other complaints: that they were assigned to do
construction work they weren't hired for, that they weren't
adequately compensated for their 12- to 16-hour days, that Hindus
were served beef, that Muslims were instructed to handle pork.
The workers said they felt trapped. They didn't want to be in Iraq,
but returning home meant no more jobs, paying their own travel
expenses and forfeiting the agent's fees. Plus, their bosses were
holding their passports.
Three months into the men's stay in Iraq, there were explosions
near the base and people ran out of the tents. While other
contractors came out in full protective gear and jumped into their
cars, the kitchen workers were told to stand outside near a tent in
their pajamas.
"At that moment we realized that they are privileged people and we
are nothing," Shani said.
One evening soon afterward, when they were handed a dinner of
beef curry that hadn't been fully cooked, several dozen of them
went to their manager, who worked for Gulf Catering, to complain.
According to the workers, the man told them they would not get any
more food. "We bought you," he reportedly said. Some Indian
workers were so furious they packed their bags and began walking
to the gates of the base. Another manager, who worked for the
Event Source, raced over to them and urged them to stay,
promising changes.
Things improved somewhat after that conversation, the workers
said, and they got their own food, both vegetarian and meat curry
each night, bottled water and -- by January -- many had air-
conditioned trailers. Still, many felt defeated by the first few difficult
months. And so in May when they were offered a bus ride out of
Iraq, nearly everyone accepted.
Fighting Back
As the men returned to Kerala, they began filing complaints -- about
a dozen so far -- with the local police department, which has
launched an investigation into how they were recruited.
The local employment agents, Subhash Vijay, Gulf Catering and
Alargan did not respond to requests for comment.
Paul Morrell, president of the Event Source, whose representative
was in charge of the dining facilities at Q-West, said he was
surprised by the workers' allegations . He said the Event Source's
agreement with its subcontractors requires them to provide
adequate food and water and flak jackets, helmets and security
guards to workers when they travel to and from bases. But, he
acknowledged, the company had been unable to independently
verify whether the requirements had been met.
"Any time workers expressed concerns, people got involved. They
made sure the workers were treated fairly," Morrell said.
Meanwhile, Ajayakumar and the others are trying to bail
themselves out of debt. While they were paid their promised base
salaries -- how much overtime they deserved and got is a matter of
dispute -- it was not enough to make up for the agent's fee and the
interest payments many had racked up. They had assumed they
would be working for two years, not nine months.
Ajayakumar has no job and no job prospects.
The only thing he has from his time in Iraq is a certificate of
appreciation from KBR. It thanks him for his help in the success of
the "dinning [sic] facility" at the camp. Thank you, the tribute on
standard 8 ½-by-11-inch paper reads, "for your tireless effort."
Independent 04 July 2004
Delhi Stories: Where the children plunge
into a river of toxic sludge
By Justin Huggler
India is a land of beautiful rivers - but not, sadly, in Delhi, where the
Yamuna river that flows through the city is a slow-moving mass of
glistening black sludge. The alluvial mud is augmented by sewage
and chemical pollution, with the result that an unwholesome
miasma hangs above the river.
But that does not discourage the children who live in the slums
along the river bank from plunging into the slimy black waters, and
emerging coated in a layer of black scum. Under the Old Yamuna
Bridge they dive for coins dropped by passengers from the trains
passing overhead.
There is a tradition in India of throwing coins into a river for luck at
the start of a journey, and when the expresses pause on the bridge,
waiting for the signals to change, a shower of one rupee coins rains
down on the river from above. That is when the children seize their
chance.
They don't have much time, because the coins quickly sink deep
into the ooze, where they cannot be recovered, so the children dive
into the waters with a cheap magnet to grab as many coins as they
can. To help them get to where the coins are thrown, they have
built makeshift rafts out of old polystyrene from the local dump,
sewn up in discarded cement bags.
Sometimes they get as much as 10 rupees (12p) in a day. It doesn't
seem a lot to risk your health in the filthy water for - but for these
children it is a princely sum.
Delhi is full of strange and unexpected rules and by-laws. In a hurry
to get to an important meeting recently, I felt my heart sink as the
taxi I was travelling in was flagged down by the police and waved to
the side of the road. What could the trouble be? We certainly
weren't going too fast and we hadn't run any red lights.
But the policeman quickly revealed the driver's heinous offence: he
wasn't wearing his uniform. Until then I had no idea there was a
uniform. But the policeman was adamant. Apparently the driver's
trousers and shirt have to be of identical colour and material,
though the colour is the driver's choice.
The policeman was all for fining the hapless driver, but he managed
to get out of it with the commendable argument that it was Sunday -
and who wears a uniform on a Sunday?
Not all Delhi bureaucracy is so easy to get around. When I tried to
get a broadband internet connection, I was told that my Indian visa,
which had two months to run before renewal, was not long enough.
What that has to do with an internet connection is not clear - since I
had already paid a hefty deposit, and a visa is no guarantee the
customer will not leave the country.
Nevertheless, the internet company would not be swayed. The
contrast between that and the Foreigners Regional Registration
Office, which provided me with a visa extension in under an hour,
was remarkable.
The new visa was in order, but the man from the internet company
said I would have to pay a new deposit. I had already paid, I
protested. That would be refunded, he said. And it was.
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