Congress still refuses to discontinue the H-2B visa program which is used to bring low-cost laborers in from other countries to replace American citizens. H-2B "slaves" are often mistreated and force to sleep in conditions reminiscent of those of a Soviet era gulag. Somebody might want to educate Obama that if he is really serious about "reforming" healtcare he should start with ridding the US of this slave labor program and others like it; slavery might be a health issue, eh Obama? It certainly is a sign of the times, at least, that a Black President winning the Nobel Peace Prize drags his feet on stopping slave practices in the US...


http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Human ... _0412.html

Human trafficking of Indian guest workers alleged in Mississippi shipyard; Contractor defends 290-man "camp"

Lindsay Beyerstein and Larisa Alexandrovna

Published: Friday April 13, 2007
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Paid $18.50 an hour, but living twenty to a trailer and fighting for spoons

A month ago Monday, a group of guest workers from India placed a frantic 3:00 am phone call to Saket Soni, lead organizer for the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice. The workers said that armed security guards were holding some workers prisoner in the TV room of the Signal International Shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, where the company's 290 welders and pipe fitters live.

The men told Soni that Signal International – a sub-contractor for mammoth defense contractor Northrop Grumman – had staged a pre-dawn raid and that six Indian workers had been detained in the “TV room,â€