A company financially backed by the Retirement Systems of Alabama is on the hook for nearly all of a 14 million dollar lawsuit. Five Indian guest workers have been awarded the money for damages by a federal grand jury. The workers were defrauded and exploited in a labor trafficking scheme by the gulf coast marine services company Signal, an immigration lawyer and an Indian Labor Recruiter.
Richard Cohen is the president of the Southern Poverty Law Center who filed the suit. He says R-S-A head David Bronner should have done his homework…
“Signal, I think was a bad actor and RSA invested in Signal AFTER we had filed our lawsuit. I think Mr. Bronner saw our lawsuit as “oh lawsuits are a cost of doing business,” but I don’t think there was any effort to investigate the merits of our case.”
Signal used the U.S. government’s H-2-B guest worker program to import nearly 500 men from India to repair damaged oil rigs and related facilities. The workers each paid labor recruiters and a lawyer, large amounts in recruitment fees and other costs after they were promised good jobs, green cards and permanent U.S. residency for them and their families.
Alabama’s bitterly cold weather is giving the state a chance to remind everyone about severe weather preparations. There’s a tax holiday this week for supplies for the upcoming tornado season. The Fourth annual Severe Weather Preparedness Sales Tax Holiday starts today. It was created after the April 2011 Tornadoes that devastated cities across the state. Amanda Collier is with the Alabama Department of Revenue. She says that the holiday encourages Alabamians to stock up now…
“We’re hoping with this tax break from the state that it will give them the opportunity to purchase things that they’ll need in severe weather situations, like batteries, battery powered radios, the NOAA weather radios; those are so helpful to get warnings out to people, and we just want to make it a little bit easier to purchase those items.”
The Severe Weather Preparedness Sales Tax Holiday runs through twelve midnight on Sunday. A list of items covered during the holiday can be found on the ADR website.
A small, Alabama-based Indian tribe that wants to expand its gambling operations into the Florida Panhandle is suggesting it might adopt a hardball negotiating stance with state leaders: Let us proceed, or we could consider growing and selling marijuana on our property.
The Poarch Band of Creek Indians says it has the right to build a casino north of Pensacola near the Alabama border.
The Poarch want to negotiate a compact with Gov. Rick Scott to govern the operation.
Scott so far has rebuffed the tribe, which already runs casinos in Alabama. The U.S. Department of Justice in December said tribes could grow and sell marijuana on their lands.
It's not clear whether the Porch would seriously consider growing pot there. The decision would need approval by the tribal council.