The complaint, filed in US District Court in Newark, New Jersey, on behalf of more than 200 Indian construction workers, alleges ‘shocking violations of the most basic laws applicable to US workers, including laws prohibiting forced labour.’
Hundreds of skilled workers from India were hired to build a large Hindu temple in New Jersey where they were forced to work long hours for meager wages in violation of US Labour Laws and immigration laws, according to the lawsuit.
A petition filed Tuesday in the US Regional Court in Newark on behalf of more than 200 Indian temple workers, accusing them of "gross violations of basic labor laws, including laws prohibiting forced labor".
The case, filed by five employees, alleges that their employer, Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, or BAPS, and organizations related to registering them in India, bringing them to the US and forcing them to work more than 87 hours a week for $ 450 a month, or approximately $ 1.20 per hour.
In that case, workers are said to be earning only $ 50 in cash per month, while others are credited to their accounts in India.
New Jersey's minimum wage is $ 12 an hour and US law sets a minimum wage for many and a half hour employees who work more than 40 hours a week.
The case alleges that workers were constantly monitored and threatened with wage cuts, arrests and returnees to India when they spoke to foreigners. On Tuesday, FBI agents visited a shiny temple in Robbinsville, east of Trenton.
"We were present at court-ordered law enforcement activities," Doreen Holder, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation field in Newark, confirmed by telephone.
The owner declined to say how many agents were in the area or explained more about their work.
A spokesman for the BAPS, which describes itself as a Hindu social and spiritual organization, with its structures at their offices in Piscataway, New Jersey, did not return calls immediately for comment.
The lawsuit alleges that BAPS organizations own the land on which the temple was built and plan to build it. The temple has been open for several years, but the work is still under way.
‘Forced to live and work in fenced area’
The plaintiffs, who claim to have been working in the temple as stonemasons and other builders since 2012, claim that in India, they belong to the Dalit community, previously considered "untouchables" and isolated from society.
Once in their construction work, the complaint stated that "they were forced to live and work in a fenced-in, guarded camp which they were not allowed to leave unattended by the BAPS".
The lawsuit alleges that more than 200 employees - most of whom do not speak English - are forced to sign employment contracts in India.
They traveled to New Jersey under a R-1 visa, designed for “those who serve, or are engaged in religious or other activities,” according to the lawsuit.
When they arrived, the case is said, their passports were confiscated and they were forced to work on the temple from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. with a few days off.
A lawyer representing several workers, Daniel Werner, called it "shocking that this is happening in our yard".
"It is very disturbing that years have passed in New Jersey behind the walls of the temple," Werner, of Decatur, Georgia on Tuesday outside the gates of the complex.
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