Source: ABC news AU
Last Updated 09/12/2006, 12:13:03
An American steel firm will have to pay over one-million US dollars compensation to 48 Thai welders.
Trans Bay Steel has been implicated in a slave labor scandal in which the welders were forced to work in squalid conditions in San Francisco while working on the Bay Bridge.
The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleged the Thais were held against their will, had their passports confiscated, their movements restricted and were forced to work without pay.
It says some of the them were housed in cramped apartments without electricity, water or gas.
The plight of the workers came to light after several of them escaped from their staff quarters and sought refuge in a Buddhist temple.
http://www.abc.net.au/ra/news/stories/s1807879.htm
