By IANS
New York : About 100 temporary workers from Nepal hired by a factory in Alabama state have vanished into the blue and efforts in the past two days to track them have failed.
Immigration agents were trying to find out what happened to the Nepalese workers, among hundreds brought to the US to work at a DVD factory operated by Cinram Inc. in Huntsville, a spokesperson for the Alabama Department of Homeland Security said.
The local TV station, WAAY-TV, that first reported the matter Tuesday quoted the landlord of apartments in two buildings rented by the over 200 Nepalese workers that scores of them had gone without notice, taking with them hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of furniture, TV sets and kitchenware from the furnished apartments.
Local media reported that Cinram last year hired over 1,000 foreign workers, including from Nepal, to pack DVD boxes because the job market in the area could not supply its needs.
They were recruited through officially recognised recruiting agencies and vetted by US embassies. They came on H-2B visas for temporary unskilled labour. Most of their visas expire at the end of May. They were paid $8 per hour for 12-hour shifts.
A spokesperson for the company that recruited the workers for Cinram has said a contact in Nepal believes many of the missing workers have returned home. The reason could be shrinking work hours for many workers at Cinram, follow-up reports in the media have said.
A spokesperson for the Nepali mission in Washington, DC, told a Neapli newspaper: “The embassy is trying to find out what happened to them (Nepali workers), whether they have actually run away or were forced out due to some reasons.”