US Contractors pay $12-15/day to Iraqis for work. Is that legal?

[madmunchie]

Doesn't minimum wage apply here? To work 6 - 8 hours for $12 - 15.00/day? I am ashamed, humiliated and outraged by this. How common is this? The other week an Iraqi delivering papers to the US Base in Mosul was shot, was he working with the "coalition forces" for $12-$15/day? and was either killed or in the very least injured?

Again, how common is this and who is overseeing any of this (don't worry, I am not that naive, to believe that anybody is REALLY overseeing this)but is anybody supposed to be overseeing this? Isn't this something that needs to be investigated and exposed? I think so.

[reichstag911]

1. If Bush* had his way,...

...it would be legal here!

[bullimiami]

2. considering the contractors probably bill 2-300 per day for the original

contract and sub it out to someone who subs it out to someone who subs it out to someone who pays these poor bastards slave wages while all the way up the food chain everyone is making more off their labor than they do, and we foot the entire corrupt bill.

oh its a dirty dirty game.

[MADem]

3. They don't pay minimum wage to Jamaican workers at Gitmo

Why would they pay it to Iraqis? Once out of the country, they can do as they please...

[frankly_fedup2]

4. Where did you get that information? Totally unbelievable. Not saying you

are lying but whoever told you that is a liar. These contractors aren't hiring Iraqi's. The only job they can get is in the military or in the police. That is why nothing is getting done.

Hell, as far as someone over this, they lost $9 Billion dollars in Iraq due to, oh what did they call it, shotty bookkeeping.

Paying someone $12-$15 a day is a positive thing for these poor people. That is why the illegals want in here. They usually make $2 a day. Even the neocons that hire the illegals and pay them under the table usually pays more then $2 an hour. Hell, they may even give them almost $4 an hour.

[madmunchie]

5. I was told by my son, who said that the Iraqi is working on the Military

Base. He said other Iraqis work on the Military bases as well. My son has no reason to lie to me, but maybe the Iraqi is lying to him.

The U.S. paying anybody $12-15/a day is NOT a positive thing, I would think that they wouldn't take advantage of those people. These contractors are certainly making enough money on the contracts to pay more.

[frankly_fedup2]

7. I apologize. Your son should know what is going on if he is there.

And thanks for not biting my head off. If that is what they are being paid, then it truly is a democracy now. Why? Because that is how the immigrant workers are paid in this country, no matter legal or illegal.

When does your son return home? How long has he been there? Does he feel what they are doing is right? Does he support the war? Sorry for the 20 questions, but whenever I talk to someone who has a son or daughter in the service. There are so many different stories. I guess it depends on where they have to serve???

[madmunchie]

9. No problem

He isn't serving in the military. He is working for a private company. He is working on a military base in Mosul. He actually was in the military before. He doesn't support the war. He doesn't trust Government period. He is there trying to get ahead and also he has an adventurous side to his personality. He is trying to get enough money together to go back to school and be able to more with his life. I wish that he wasn't there, but he is a grown man and is free to make his own decisions.

He talks to the Iraqis that work on base. It sounds like they are in constant danger because they are working "with" the Americans. He feels pretty bad for them and ashamed of his country for what we have done to that country and many others like Iraq.

[Douglas Carpenter]

6. not to be a defender of low wages -- I'm not

but having worked a great deal in the Persian Gulf that would be actually be above average for a laborer even in the oil rich gulf states.

I suspect going wages in Iraq would be more comparable to a country like Egypt, Syria or Iran where 12 to 15 U.S. dollars a day would be at least double or triple the average daily wage for a laborer.

[Sensitivity]

8. Iraq had the most educated wel-paid workforce in the ME prior to GulfWar

Now they have DEMOCRACY -- subsistence wages, U.S. business "entrepreneurs" helping themselves to wheel-barrows of million dollar bundles, and "contractors" to get paid 100 times there wages to keep them in check.

I wonder how they like it?