Contractor for Planet Hollywood, Louis Vitton Not Paying Workers

Prime Pacific Builders, a company that, according to their website, has worked on at least a Louis Vitton luxury store and Planet Hollywood location, is being accused of some serious labor violations. The group of foreign construction workers they hired for their latest project in Guam claims they've never been paid for their work. But while Prime Pacific Builders certainly violated the law by not paying their workers, the circumstances around the wage stiffing also reek of slavery.

First of all, Prime Pacific Builders brought the workers over on a HB-2 visa, which means that the workers were only allowed to do "temporary" work, and they couldn't leave their job without proof of another offer in the U.S. It's easy for unscrupulous employers to use this sort of visa to convince workers that they are not allowed to leave their job at all, or they will be arrested or deported.

The second indication of trafficking is that the men lived where they worked -- in a house they were in the process of renovating. News reports have not gone into detail about the living standards or quality of housing provided, but workers who are housed at their job site and made to repair the place they live in raises an army of red trafficking flags.

And finally, the biggest sign is that the workers were never paid. It's not that Pacific Rim Builders paid them less than they promised or in irregular intervals. The workers never saw a penny for their labor. No money for your work? Sounds like slavery to me.

In cases like these, it's important to remember that freedom is at the heart of human trafficking, and that people are trafficking victims when someone uses force, fraud, or coercion to keep them from being free. In this case, the nature of the visa, location of the housing, and lack of payment were all tools which Prime Pacific Builders could have used to coerce the men into staying, by threatening them with deportation or other harms. The Department of Labor is currently investigating the workers' claims and the company's behavior.

The other lesson this case teaches is that a luxury brand is not immune from the taint of slavery any more than a discount brand is. As someone who has lived on an activist/writer's salary her whole adult life, I've never actually set foot in a Louis Vitton store, but several hip-hop songs tell me they are full of pricey, high-quality items. I have, embarrassingly, set foot in a Planet Hollywood to enjoy an overpriced sandwich amid cool stuff from movies I've seen. As two well-known brands, I never would have dreamed the stores would have been built by a contractor who doesn't pay their workers.

I guess the moral of the story is that you can't judge a store -- or restaurant or apparent simple wage violation -- by what you see on the outside. And, of course, don't take a job with Prime Pacific Builders.

Photo credit: sebastian davis