Started by: Ana Rosa Diaz, Breaux Bridge, Louisiana.
My
name is Ana Rosa Diaz. I'm 40 years old and I have four children. I
came to the United States on an H-2B guestworker visa from my home in
Tamaulipas, Mexico. I work in a small town in Louisiana with other
guestworkers, peeling crawfish for a company called C.J.’s Seafood,
which sells 85% of its products to Walmart.
Our boss forces
us to work up to 24 hours at a time with no overtime pay. No matter how
fast we work, they scream and curse at us to make us work faster. Our
supervisor threatens to beat us with a shovel to stop us from taking
breaks.
We live in
trailers across from the boss's house, and we’re under surveillance all
the time. The supervisors come into our trailers without warning, and
they threaten to fire us if we leave after 9 p.m.
The supervisor
also locked us in the plant so we couldn’t take breaks. One worker
called 911. After that the boss rounded us up at 2:30 a.m., closed the
door to keep the American employees out, and threatened our families.
He said, “As a
friend I can be very good, but you don’t want to know me as an enemy. I
have contacts with good people and bad people, and I know where all your
families live. I can find you no matter where you hide.” We were
terrified.
We want to work. We need to support our families. But we also want to be treated like human beings.
We joined
the National Guestworker Alliance and decided to go on strike. The boss
refused to take back his threats against our families, so now we’re
taking our demands to Walmart.
Walmart says it
doesn't allow forced labor by any of its suppliers. But Walmart is
profiting from the forced labor we lived through right here in
Louisiana. And now they're trying to cover up what happened to us -- while refusing even to speak with us.
Walmart needs to meet with us immediately, and to show its suppliers that it won't tolerate forced labor. We’re demanding that Walmart:
1. Cancel its contract with C.J.’s Seafood to show that it won't profit from forced labor in Louisiana.
2. Sit down with us, the striking workers, immediately as a first step toward a real investigation -- rather than a cover-up.
3. Sign the
NGA's Guestworker Dignity Standards to prevent forced labor and
guarantee civil and labor rights for guestworkers across the Walmart
supply chain.
Please sign and stand with us!
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