[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 61 (Wednesday, May 11, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E942]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 THE INDENTURED SERVITUDE ABOLITION ACT OF 2005 INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. GEORGE MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, May 11, 2005

  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to 
introduce the Indentured Servitude Abolition Act of 2005. At a time 
when the President and many Members of this House are discussing 
legislation to greatly expand the number of foreign workers who come to 
the United States legally for work, we must ensure that they are not 
indentured servants who owe unconscionable fees to recruiters.
  One hundred and forty years ago, the American Civil War ended. 
Slavery and involuntary servitude were prohibited throughout our nation 
by the adoption of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. And yet, as 
has been well documented in the press, thousands of men (and especially 
women) endure abuse as indentured servants because, as a condition of 
securing a job, they must pay exorbitant fees to labor recruiters--fees 
it can take years to payoff. The problem of recruiter-related 
indentured servitude has been well publicized in the Commonwealth of 
the Northern Mariana Islands, but it is a problem throughout this 
country, and it will grow as more guest workers are permitted. Foreign 
labor contractors lure workers to the United States by promising them a 
better life with decent wages and good jobs in exchange for thousands 
of dollars in fees. Instead, workers arrive in the U.S. only to find 
that they were cruelly deceived. They earn unlivable wages for menial 
jobs to which they never agreed, with no insurance or health care, and 
deeply in debt to the recruiter for bringing them to their new home.
  Sadly, those are the least of their worries. Workers endure sweatshop 
conditions and back-breaking work for inhumanly long hours. They are 
forced to work through illness and injury with only one day of rest per 
week. Employers automatically deduct the majority of their weekly pay 
for room and board, often for living situations not fit for animals and 
starvation rations, leaving workers with a few dollars if not further 
in debt. And that is when their wages are not withheld, a frequent 
occurrence. Most distressing of all, many workers suffer physical 
violence at the hands of their employers and are threatened if they 
should try to leave. Unable to pay off debt manufactured by the 
recruiters and their employer and fearing for their lives, workers are 
trapped.
  This is not an exaggeration: it is the disturbing reality for 
thousands of workers in this country. This is not employment 
opportunity: it is indentured servitude, and it should not be occurring 
in the United States in 2005. Just this week investigations into La 
Mode Inc., a Saipan company that unlawfully suspended operations while 
owing workers back wages of more than $395,000, revealed that Chinese 
employees were required to pay recruitment fees of $4,500 to $8,000 for 
the privilege of working at a job that pays barely $3 an hour, and then 
being unlawfully terminated before the expiration of their contract, 
cheated out of their pay, and abandoned in a strange land.

  This deplorable practice not only undermines living standards, it 
ruins lives. It is a violation of basic human rights that leaves 
workers as indentured servants, forcing them to endure a form of modern 
day slavery. The Indentured Servitude Abolition Act of 2005 will end 
this cruel practice by providing for tough legal accountability for 
foreign labor contractors and employers.
  The ``Indentured Servitude Abolition Act of 2005'' holds recruiters 
and employers responsible for the promises they make to prospective 
employees, and discourages employers from using disreputable 
recruiters. The bill requires employers and foreign labor contractors 
to inform workers of the terms and conditions of their employment at 
the time they are recruited. It makes employers jointly liable for 
violations committed by recruiters in their employ. It imposes fines on 
employers and recruiters who do not live up to their promises and 
authorizes the Secretary of Labor to take additional legal action to 
enforce those commitments. Employers and recruiters are prohibited from 
requiring or requesting recruitment fees from workers and are required 
to pay the costs, including subsistence costs, of transporting the 
worker.
  The bill discourages disreputable labor contractors by requiring the 
Secretary of Labor to maintain a public list of labor contractors who 
have been involved in violations of the Act and by providing additional 
penalties if employers use a contractor listed by the Secretary as 
having been involved in previous violations of this Act and that 
contractor contributes to a violation for which the employer may be 
liable. The remedies provided under the ``Indentured Servitude 
Abolition Act'' are not exclusive, but are in addition to any other 
remedies workers may have under law or contract.
  The legislation I am introducing has been endorsed by the Farmworker 
Justice Fund, the National Employment Law Project, and the AFL-CIO. The 
National Employment Law Project notes that ``labor recruiters currently 
enjoy a near total lack of accountability for the workers' job 
conditions'' and that the bill performs ``an important service by 
requiring both the users of the labor and the recruiters themselves to 
inform workers on the job conditions they can expect.''
  The Farmworker Justice Fund notes that the legislation addresses, 
``the new reality of global labor migration. . . . In many cases 
foreign workers who are recruited for U.S. jobs suffer harsh abuses in 
the form of huge debts, usurious loans, threats of violence, false 
promises, and illegal wages and working conditions. . . . We must gain 
control over labor migration and this is one important step toward that 
goal.''
  Is it too much to ask that people who live on American soil, making 
products for American consumption, be treated like American workers? 
Our basic respect for human rights demands that we act now to protect 
these workers. I am pleased that 24 of our colleagues have joined me as 
original cosponsors of this bill. I am hopeful that all of our 
colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, will add their support to this 
critical legislation to end the despicable practice of slavery in the 
United States once and for all. Mr. Speaker, I urge Members of the 
House to join me and co-sponsor the Indentured Servitude Abolition Act 
of 2005.

                          ____________________