One of the common stories is exemplified in Melvin Umali, a Filipino worker at Camp Marez who was supposed to work in Dubai. And when asked what happened, he said, “The agency lied.” After applying for a job in Dubai, “we were told there weren’t any jobs in Dubai” and “I didn’t really have a choice. I’d already spent so much money. That’s why when they asked me if I was willing to go to Iraq, I took my chance.”
Recourse is nearly impossible when the chains of U.S. contractors and subcontractors may be three, four or five links deep, leaving TCNs unsure who their employer actually is.
In the world of migrant labor, risks are quite high but for Wang, “migration in the Philippines is really on another scale … migrating into a war zone is taking the logic of globalization to the extreme. But I think that’s the moment we’re in, where we have to ask ourselves if there should be any limits on the global labor market.”
Responding to this critical question, the Philippines in 2004 barred further contract workers from going to Iraq. But many Filipinos are so desperate for work that they will take detours to other countries as a means to circumvent the checks in place keeping them from going to Iraq. And, as a country, the Philippines is not in a position to turn down the remittances; approximately one-seventh of the Filipino economy relies on expatriate labor remittances.
One of the Filipinos who worked for home, Rodrigo Reyes, was a truck driver. Wang says that the life of a truck driver, like Reyes “is a completely different thing.” “We went on a convoy run that was a little harrowing. But when it got hairy you just have to remind yourself that these guys do this every night. Night after night.”
Lives Valued on a Sliding Scale
What Wang finds particularly disturbing about convoys in Iraq is that most of the convoys are now driven by TCNs. Wang recalls: “One American Army Major we interviewed told us the ratio was 3:1 TCN to American. Having American contractors on the road is just too much of a liability.”
In a grotesque turn, not only do TCNs work for a fraction of the salary paid to American drivers, Wang alerts us that “they go out on the road in trucks that have no armor. Zero. We toured a TCN truck yard (yes, even the truck yards are segregated) and all the trucks were just regular 16 wheelers. No steel plating — not even on the doors.” The KBR trucks, however, “look more like tanks on wheels.”
Hedging on this liability may have been what cost Rodrigo Reyes his life. Reyes’ family, including his cousin Mario Reyes who was also in Iraq with Rodrigo, recalls his history as a migrant truck driver from the Philippines. When it came to Iraq, they begged him not to go, but Reyes sold his truck and paid his recruitment fee with the intention of “providing his family a bright future.” In the film, a hopeful narrative ends abruptly when Reyes’ wife receives a call that his truck had been blown up.
Paying to work, living like prisoners
One of the films surprising moments for viewers was also a surprising discovery for Mike Land, a KBR labor coordinator who spoke to Wang despite the knowledge that he could lose his job. Wang describes him as “an idealist on some level and who believes in doing the right thing.”
“I’ll never forget,” Land recalls. “I was walking down the road with my first four guys and Charlie was elated. In his broken English, he said ‘no more bank … money go home.’ I managed to understand that he was elated because he had paid off the bank; he had paid off the loan on his agency fee. And he described the fee that he paid.”
TCNs pay fees to labor recruiters in their home countries to get the jobs that often pay them $300 a month. The fees can run as high as a few thousand dollars, which means that TCNs often work a year before breaking even, or they drain their life savings or sell everything they own to work in another country.
“You could call [Land’s shock] willful ignorance,” said Wang. “But the reality is that on the ground in Iraq the life of TCNs is pretty rigidly segregated from the life of American contractors. They live in separate camps and often eat in separate dining halls. American contractors are also not allowed into the living quarters of TCNs and vice versa. In fact the trailers of the TCNs at Camp Marez were guarded by private security. Soldiers know even less about how TCNs live.”
Since filming, Land wrote on a message board:
“It’s also hard to see these guys confined to their crowded camp like prisoners. They are denied access to the very facilities they built, maintain and clean. And their mobility is being reduced. Some of my guys who’ve been here three years now — and once had an orange badge that at least permitted them to take a walk outside their camp — have been issued red badges. That means they can not be without an [American] expat escort.”
Land reports that the camps have been improved somewhat over the past two years but some issues still exist: a repeated diet of mostly rice, poor medical — and no dental — care. They live a dozen (sometimes more) per 40 foot shipping containers, oftentimes with sewage overflowing and showers that don’t work, as the film captures.
“When abuses like this have been brought to KBR’s attention, their standard response is to plead ignorance,” said Wang.
“In a way this isn’t so surprising because fundamentally, contracting is about farming out responsibility and accountability, and that means closing your eyes when it’s convenient.”
