Filipino teachers file lawsuit against recruiters
LOUISIANA - More than 350 Filipino teachers hired to work in Louisiana public schools filed a class action against their recruiters, Los Angeles-based Universal Placement International and Manila-based PARS International Placement Agency.
The Filipino teachers said they were cheated out of tens of thousands of dollars and forced to sign contracts that exploited them.
The federal lawsuit was filed before the US District Court-Central California by the American Federation of Teachers, Southern Poverty Law Center and the Law Offices of Covington and Burling.
The lawsuit accuses officials of Universal and its sister organization, PARS, of human trafficking, racketeering and fraud.
Defendants are Lourdes Navarro, owner and president of Universal, Jack Navarro, director of Universal, and Emilio Villarba, director of PARS.
In 2007, Filipino teachers were hired to work in various school districts in Louisiana. The Filipino teachers said their agency confiscated their passports and visas until they paid $16,000 in placement fees.
They also said they were forced to sign away an additional 10% of their annual income. The Filipino teachers said the recruiters threatened to send them home if they resisted.
Orpha Kabigting, a special education teacher in Louisiana, is one of the Filipino teachers victimized.
“We had no choice but to agree to their requirements. We need to earn money and we are already deep in debt because of their fees,” she said.
Kabigting said it was important for them to fight for their rights in court.
“We filed the class action suit because so many lives were affected. We wanted to correct things. And we don’t want other Filipinos victimized,” said Kabigting.
In a statement, Universal Placement International said, “We are still reviewing the lawsuit. Regardless, Universal worked diligently in helping the State of Louisiana find qualified teachers from the Philippines to meet a desperate shortage in the wake of the Katrina disaster.”
Universal added that there is nothing wrong with charging a reasonable fee to offset expenses shouldered by the company. The company said it looks forward to responding to these allegations in court. Balitang America
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Louisiana Filipino Teacher - The TRUTH behind the lawsuit
Louisiana Filipino Teachers (EBR-East Baton Rouge Parish School) suing their own employer are caught in a bind against other teachers because 'THEY INCLUDED OTHER TEACHERS IN THE SAME SCHOOL IN THE CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT' without their consent, either verbal or better 'written consent' to include their names. This is a tactic from a few disgruntle Louisiana teachers to receive a 'U' visa which means that they are abuse by their school which includes 'FORCE LABOR'. I haven't heard any like this anywhere in United States. School forcing labor which also include human trafficking, extortion, and such. What kind of H1-visa did they receive? Does it says that we in their visas to work on FORCE LABOR, human trafficking, extortion, etc etc? we don't think so. What we need is to stop their intent to defraud our government thru false accusation to gain compensation ( 5 million dollars). This is our tax dollars in play here. what's going on? Lastly, adding complainants without their consent is horrific. They must be punished for lying and adding others to gain momentum. These Filipino teachers absolutely SUED their employers (schools) to extract monetary compensation which is their plan. VESTED INTEREST equals (dollars, dollars, dollars). BEWARE of this group. You were WARN!
PARS INTERNATIONAL PLACEMENT AGENCY
Dapat the BIR and POEA investigate this recruiting agency for what happened to our pinoys in america... the BIR should conduct tax evasion cases etc...madaming recuiting agnecies sa atin na nandadaya ng mga filing of income taxes..alam ng mga taga BIR Dept of Finance eto...pero tahimik lang sila..you all know why?
pinoy teachers versus recruiters
I strongly condemn these recruiters, put all of them in a firing squad.