Hmong want better bilingual services
Refugees will present list of demands to Doyle asking for job support
By GEORGIA PABST
gpabst@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Aug. 14, 2005
Hmong refugees and their advocates said Sunday they will formally submit a list of demands to Gov. Jim Doyle and welfare officials asking for adequate job training and bilingual services before refugees are placed in jobs, such as those at the Patrick Cudahy meat-packing plant.

Hmong Workers' Rights Forum

Wa Thao (center) is among a group of Hmong immigrants who attended a workers' rights forum Sunday at the Hmong American Women's Association. Workers told state and local officials at the meeting that the W-2 agency Maximus is placing workers in dangerous work environments without adequate training or access to bilingual services.

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Section: Hmong Refugees' Journey to America

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At a Hmong workers' rights forum held at the Hmong American Women's Association center and attended by about 100 people, the refugees and their supporters said they are asking that:

• Maximus, the agency that provides Wisconsin Works (W-2) welfare services to all refugees in Milwaukee, be held accountable for adequately preparing the refugees for safe, family-supporting work.

• Maximus "stop unsafe and untrained placements until Maximus or the state acquires funds to increase access to bilingual skills training and vocational English as a second language."

• The refugees get full access to Maximus' policies and to the criteria used to determine job readiness.

• The state conduct a full audit of Maximus' finances and make public what it spends on immigrants and refugees.

The refugees and their supporters, including Milwaukee County supervisors James White and Roger Quindel, state Rep. Tamara Grigsby (D-Milwaukee) and representatives from the office of U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore of Milwaukee (D-Wis.), blasted state policies and Maximus for sending the Hmong refugees to the meat-packing plant without training or bilingual interpreters. About 70 workers have been sent to the plant, said Pa Vang, of Hmong American Women, who has been working with the refugees.

Maximus assigns refugees to Patrick Cudahy through a temporary placement agency.

Some of the refugees who work at Patrick Cudahy spoke Sunday and said they were trained for their jobs by workers who used hand signals. Some said they had been injured or become sick in the cold meat-packing environment. Many have quit their jobs and some said they have been terminated from the W-2 program and can no longer pay their rent.

Sue Levy, refugee services section chief for the Department of Workforce Development, attended Sunday's forum and told refugees that she understood that "you have been having a very, very difficult time."

But she said that working and learning English had to be undertaken together and refugees were better off economically with jobs that pay them more than the benefits they receive in the W-2 program.

Organizers of the forum said Maximus officials had been invited but did not attend. Maximus officials have said they are following state directives for placing refugees in jobs. They have also said they're working to improve transportation and to deal with other issues raised by the refugees.

Pat DeLessio, a lawyer with Legal Action of Wisconsin, said the refugees have not been adequately informed of their rights, such as the right to a hearing when their W-2 benefits are cut.

The refugees also have a right to receive notices in their own language, she said. "I have looked at a number of cases and they were not accurately told of their rights, and their notices were received in English," DeLessio said.

One refugee who worked at Patrick Cudahy, who wanted to be known only as Xa for fear of retribution, said he has eight children and worked at the company for 2 1/2 months, but quit because of transportation problems.

He said he got off work at 3:30 a.m. and had to wait until 6 a.m. for a bus. He said he had purchased a car and drove to work without a driver's license, but the car broke down.

"We have not received any money for three months now," he said. "We had our case reviewed but have to wait to receive assistance until September."

Quindel, who is on the county's W-2 monitoring task force, told the refugees that the Hmong are in "a special category" for giving their lives to help the U.S. during the Vietnam War. "We owe you language and literacy training. We owe you time to adjust to this country and to train for family-supporting jobs. We owe this to you because of what you did for our country."


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