Dalits lured from India to build US temple paid $1.2/hour for years
NEW YORK: Hundreds of marginalised workers from India were recruited to build a massive Hindu temple in New Jersey where they were forced to work long hours for low pay in violation of US labour and immigration laws, according to lawsuit filed on Tuesday.
The lawsuit filed in US district court in Newark says more than 200 workers were coerced into signing employment agreements in India. They travelled to New Jersey under R-1 visas, which are meant for “those who work in religious vocations or occupations,” according to the lawsuit.
When they arrived, the lawsuit says, their passports were taken away by their employer, Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, or BAPS, and they were forced to work at the temple from 6.30 am to 7.30 pm with few days off, for about $450 per month a rate that the suit said came out to around $1.20 per hour. Of that, the workers allegedly only received $50 in cash per month, with the rest deposited into their accounts in India.
According to the lawsuit, the exploited workers were Dalits
BAPS CEO Kanu Patel, who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, said, “I respectfully disagree with the wage claim.”
NEW YORK: Hundreds of marginalised workers from India were recruited to build a massive Hindu temple in New Jersey where they were forced to work long hours for low pay in violation of US labour and immigration laws, according to lawsuit filed on Tuesday.
The complaint, filed in US district court in Newark on behalf of more than 200 Indian construction workers at the temple, alleges “shocking violations of the most basic laws applicable to workers in this country, including laws prohibiting forced labour”.
The suit, filed by five of the workers, accuses their employer, Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS), and related entities of recruiting them in India, taking them to the US and forcing them to work on the temple for more than 87 hours a week for $450 a month, or about $1.20 an hour.
New Jersey’s minimum wage is $12 an hour and US law requires the pay rate for most hourly workers rise to time-anda-half when they work more than 40 hours a week.
The suit says the workers were kept under constant watch and were threatened with pay cuts, arrest and return to India if they spoke to outsiders. On Tuesday, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents visited the sprawling ornate temple in rural Robbinsville.
“We were there on court-authorised law enforcement activity,” Doreen Holder, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation field office in Newark, confirmed by telephone.
Holder immediately declined to say how many agents were on the premises or elaborate on their mission.
A spokesman for BAPS, which describes itself as a socio-spiritual Hindu organisation, and its entities at their offices in Piscataway, New Jersey, did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
The suit said the BAPS entities own the land where the temple was built and arranged for its construction. The temple has been open for several years, but work on extending it is ongoing.
The plaintiffs, who claim to have worked on the temple as stone cutters and other construction workers as far back as 2012, said that in India, they belonged to the Scheduled Caste, formerly considered “untouchables” and socially ostracised.