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| "Farewell" (ca. 1900-02) by Joseph DeCamp |
Question set:
Should a company have freedom to expel from the country any workers they choose at any time, if the company was responsible for their transportation into the country in the first place AND was responsible for sponsoring their work visas? Or should the workers--even non-citizens on work visas--have the right of free speech and the right to make their case before an impartial judge?
Again, this is not a legal question for you to look up on the internet. What do you consider to be fair and sensible?
Only answer this question after you have finished reading part two, chapter nine and all preceding chapters.
I believe that it is fair and sensible to treat others how you want to be treated no matter who they are or who they are thought to be. If I was reliant on a company that is abusing me I would desperately want to be able to speak up and to be heard by someone who can change the situation. So, why should someone else not be able to do the same thing? I understand that the judicial system is overloaded as it is but that does not mean that people should be stripped of basic human rights. What that means is that something else should be changed so everyone on American soil can have the right to free speech and to be heard.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Emma. I think it does boil down to treating people how you would want to be treated. Schooner and other signal employees didn't view the Indian workers as people and treated them as a means to an end. Their human needs were treated as an inconvenience rather than a right. If Schooner was in the man camp he would be horrified but he had no issue subjecting hundreds of men to live there.
Delete-Jenna Whitehead
I feel if companies choose the responsibility of bringing workers from their home country, the choice should be taken out of their hands and they should have to abide by laws set to protect the workers. Most companies can not be trusted to put a workers well-being over making money. This power over the workers would easily turn into a threat, like it did in the book. This power should be given to a government organization designated to review the circumstances with an unbiased opinion and decide if the worker should stay or leave. I think when the companies brought the workers over, they are obligated to provide the workers with freedom of speech and the right to make their case as any American citizen would have.
ReplyDeleteI feel as though once a company brings individuals over to America from their homes, that it is no longer up to them whether or not they stay or go. Deporting people and terminating their employment flips lives upside down. The decision to deport someone from the country is a large one, and I think it's possible that deportation would become an impulsive decision made out of anger. If companies are given all this power, I believe that they would abuse that power (as they did in the book). Since these workers are in America, I think the decision should lie with the American government. I also think that giving the workers a right to make their case is only fair, seeing as a lot of large companies tend to have large amounts of bias.
ReplyDeleteSignal's deportation strategy is simply not responsible or humane conduct on the part of an employer. It is apparent, through what Soni relays to the reader, that this is a naked tool of intimidation designed to take any power or control away from the workers. The Signal supervisors can force the workers to do whatever work they want, and if the workers do not comply, they are free to utilize their private gendarmerie force to terrorize and round up workers to send them back without a refund for the monstrous fees they had to pay to come to America to begin with. There is no reason why a corporation should be able to play the role of judge, jury, and executioner of the sentence. If the government has to levy further regulations on the sponsoring of work visas in order to stop private entities from serving as their own anti-immigration prosecutors, then so be it. Just because a corporation like Signal brought in foreign workers, this does not entitle them to total control over the workers and their rights or potential rights. To argue that they should have that power is, in my opinion, the argument of the trafficker who perceives that they have "bought" not only the labor, but the lives of their workers.
ReplyDelete-Eli Grasso
DeleteI believe that everyone should get a fair shot. I don’t think companies should have the right to abuse their workers just based on the sole fact that they are the reason they got into America. If the companies are loading them up and flying them back to India because the workers would complain or not meet up to their working standards then I think that is wrong. If I was working for a company that had that poor of living conditions etc. just as they did I wouldn’t want to work hard either and I would feel as though I got scammed. I would want to complain about it too. I believe they have a right to go before a judge and state their case, instead of the company just rounding them up and taking them to India with no explanation.
ReplyDeleteIt is unfair for a company to be able to expel any workers they choose at any time, especially if the company was responsible for their transportation and the sponsorship of their work visas. The company would have set the worker, the human being, up for complete failure with the burden of either finding their own way home or finding a new sponsor while being a fugitive. Just like any American, it is only fair to have a cause of termination, and have these guidelines discussed at the beginning of their employment. Even as a part-time American resident, freedom of speech should be a given. Also, if they are possibly subject to a court for any other reason, it is only sensible for them to be able to plead their case before an impartial judge. If the workers are under contract like Americans, are free to live here (under their visas), and are able to work like Americans or even better, they should be treated as well as Americans.
ReplyDelete