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Company in Pennsylvania, USA Accused of Trafficking

Workers from Thailand say they’ve been made into economic slaves by the company that brought them to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They’re 20 men from Thailand who for the past year have picked mushrooms in Armstrong County.

They say they often did not get paid and now they must return home where they will face enormous debt. Venture into an abandoned limestone mine in Armstrong County and you’ll find hundreds of workers picking mushrooms in the dark.

It’s tough work and not enough locals wanted the job so last year Creekside Mushrooms hired 20 legal guest workers from Thailand through a California company called Global Horizons. Under the contract, Creekside paid Global but soon discovered that Global wasn’t paying the workers for long stretches of time. Some nights, the men had to go fishing after work just to feed themselves.

“We made multiple phone calls to the president of the company who then chose not to return any of my calls or emails and the gentlemen just weren’t getting paid,” Domenic Galassi, an official with Creekside Mushroom, said. And Galassi says their situation has become even more dire. He says each man paid upwards of $20,000 to a recruiter in Thailand to come to America on Global’s promise of three years employment.

But now Global is telling them they must return to Thailand after only one year. “These guys are going home with huge debt owed to this company that cost them to get the ability to come here,” Galassi said.  “People being forced to work under harsh conditions without compensation,” Mary Burke, from the Project to End Human Trafficking, said. A human rights group in Pittsburgh is now accusing global of human trafficking, a form, they say, of economic slavery. But that’s just the least of it.

This past year, the U.S. Department of Labor banned Global from bringing new workers into country, citing Global for fraud and violating workers’ rights. The company is currently under investigation in at least three states, including Washington where a judge last week ordered the company to pay Thai workers $1.9 million.

The Pennsylvania state Labor Department also confirmed that it’s investigating, but a Global representative denied any allegations of human trafficking. “That is not true,” Pranee Tubchompol, from Global Horizons, said. “We [are] not trafficking the worker[s].”

She concedes that some workers were paid late because she says Global is in financial trouble. And even though they were promised longer stays, Tubchompol says the workers must return home now.

Sheehan: “What if they resist?”

Tubchompol: “We’re gonna have to report to the INS, to the immigration that they absconded or they [ran] away.”

People sympathetic to these workers have relocated the workers. They are appealing to the U.S. Department of Labor to recognize them as victims of trafficking and they want the U.S. to issue them new visas.

Adapted from: "Company Accused Of Human Trafficking." www.kdka.com. 16 July 2007.