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Indian workers in U.S. win "virtual slavery" case

Erstwhile employer charged with fraud, open hostility

Tulsa (U.S.): A U.S. Federal judge awarded a group of 52 Indian men more than $1.2 million after finding an oil equipment manufacturer guilty of fraud, false imprisonment and civil rights violations.

Federal judge Clair V. Egan's ruling described an environment of threats and intimidation, daily harassment and open hostility from management at the John Pickle Co.

"Defendants recruited Indian workers in India, brought them to the United States, housed and fed them separately from the non-Indian JPC employees, identified them as Indians and made numerous discriminatory comments about their ancestry, ethnic background, culture, and country," Mr. Egan wrote.

The verdict, first reported by the Tulsa World, came more than four years after the workers left the west Tulsa factory. They told of being forced to work long hours for only a few dollars a day. The men accused the company of making them live in a dormitory on the factory grounds and keeping them from leaving the factory grounds even when off-duty.

If divided equally, each worker might receive more than $20,000. Federal attorneys, who joined the lawsuit on the side of the workers, had asked the judge for $5.5 million in back wages and damages.

Lead plaintiffs' attorney Ken Felty said while his clients did not get that amount, the judgment still ranks as the first million-dollar verdict in a case of this kind.

"This case wasn't about the money," Mr. Felty said. "It was about making sure that something like this doesn't happen again, that more workers aren't exploited and more people are mistreated."

John Pickle Co. ceased operations shortly after the Indian employees left the company and filed the lawsuit.

After the workers left and throughout the trial, the company maintained its innocence. — AP

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