New York:
Shanti Gurung, a 22 year-old Indian maid, was recently awarded $1.5 million in damages by a United States district judge after her three years of service with an Indian diplomat and her husband.
Ms. Gurung's case is extreme - she was forced to work 16 hours a day, paid a total of $120 (around 5,500 rupees) for the three years she worked and lost 63 pounds, dropping to 84 pounds, court documents say. She slept on the living room floor and was only allowed to eat leftovers.
But it does not seem to be isolated. Adhikaar, the Woodside, Queens based non-profit which brought Gurung's case to light is reviewing "at least five" other cases of Indian employers exploiting their domestic workers from India, according to Luna Ranjit, the executive director of Adhikaar.
That does not surprise me after living in New York City for the past decade. I've seen many Indian families here bring over household help from India, the way Neena and Jogesh Malhotra did with Shanti Gurung. Sometimes, the way these families treated their help was less than ideal.
While my experience is purely anecdotal, and hardly the result of a scientific survey, I think there remains a huge disconnect between what is acceptable in the United States and what is acceptable in India.
An acquaintance of mine, for example, hired a woman from Mumbai to live with his family in New Jersey so she could take care of his two children, cook all the meals and clean the house. He paid her $150 a week for her six days of work and thought that he was being exceptionally generous because she was making far more than she would be in India, where the going rate is 5,000-8,000 rupees a month, the equivalent of $100 to $160. His rationale: she was going back to India eventually anyway and thanks to him, she would have more than enough money saved to support her whole family for the rest of their lives.
Another family had a live-in cook from New Delhi, who spent long hours in their Midtown Manhattan apartment kitchen churning out food for the endless stream of lunch and dinner parties the couple held for their friends. His bed was the floor of the small kitchen that he cooked in all day.
Generally, at least from what I have observed, when Indians coming directly from India hire other recent immigrants from India to work for them in their homes in New York City, they pay them far below the going rate of $10 to $18 an hour.
Often, those employees get free room and board since they live with their employers. But their terms of employment often do not meet the pay, time-off and other requirements of national and local labor laws. Federal minimum wage in United States is $7.25 compared with the wage floor of 100 rupees - $2 - per day in India as set by the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.
Ms. Gurung and employees from India are protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the New York Labor Law (NYLL) unless their employer is recognized as a diplomat by the U.S. State Department. "Some court decisions have made it difficult for domestic workers of diplomats to raise FLSA claims against their employers," said Dana Sussman, an associate with the Manhattan-based employment law firm Outten & Golden LLP.
In Shanti Gurung's case, though, the United States court determined that diplomatic immunity did not apply. According to the judge's final decision on the Gurung case, "the FLSA requires employers to pay their employees at least the federal minimum wage for every hour worked."
The Malhotras have never contested the charges, and have since returned to India. Collecting the award may be difficult. A Delhi High Court ruled this month that Ms. Gurung should not pursue the case because she and the Malhotras are Indian citizens, so it is a matter for the Indian government to decide.
While it's common to hear of illegal workers being exploited in the United States, employees from India, like Ms. Gurung, generally come to this country legally and are entitled to be treated fairly. States like New York also protect illegal domestic workers.
Generally, at least from what I have observed, Indian employers who do not follow laws in the United States do not think they are doing something wrong. In fact, they often think they are doing their help a favor, giving them an opportunity to build their savings quickly. But even after factoring in the free room and board, it's hard to see this compensation meeting requirements or market rates.
I certainly do not want to suggest that all help brought over from India does not receive pay deemed acceptable by American standards. I have also seen several instances of them being treated exceptionally well by their employers who in addition to fair wages, will pay for their medical care, their children's schooling in India and even annual trips back home where the time off is fully paid.
It is not just Indian domestic workers brought over from India who are vulnerable to employer abuse in the United States, Ms. Ranjit says. "Anytime anyone brings domestic workers over from a developing country such as the Philippines, these domestic workers are at risk because they don't know the country or how the system works and don't have other co-workers to consult," she said. "Many of the situations where domestic workers are being abused such as Gurung was never see the light of day because the workers don't have the courage to come out," she said.
Ms. Gurung learned about Adhikaar through another domestic worker she met in the Malhotras' Midtown East neighborhood. In her case, the Malhotras asked her to lie about her pay to the American Embassy in New Delhi, to ensure that her visa was issued. She told the embassy that she would be paid $7 per hour, not the 5,000 rupees, or about $100, per month the Malhotras had negotiated with her. U.S. magistrate Judge Frank Maas noted that Ms. Gurung thought that 5,000 rupees "sounded like a good salary for someone in [her] position."
Salary issue aside, Ms. Gurung's award may be partially to do with the treatment she received from her employers. The court also found that Ms. Gurung had no escape route since the Malhotras seized her passport and visa upon her arrival in the United States. The magistrate judge also found that they constantly warned her of the consequences of leaving their apartment, claiming that she would be "arrested, beaten, raped, and sent back to India as 'cargo."'
It's hard to believe that this was happening in the same city as this nanny, who earns $180,000 a year.