You never bought a bag of weed? I’ve been happy with a number of “fair, but illegal” agreements over the years.
Then why did the maid negotiate such a large increase in the under-the-table payment? The indictment indicates that the first offer to the maid was 20,000 rupees a month. Ensuing negotiations raised the payment to 30,000 rupees a month. If you were the maid and your whole intent was to scam your way into the United States, why would you jeopardize the job by attempting to get a 50% increase in pay from the first offer that was put on the table?
If my intent was to get into the United States at any cost, I wouldn’t play hardball in salary negotiations and risk not getting the job. I’d accept any reasonable offer just to keep my plan on track.
How many times does it have to be explained to you that what the maid thought about the agreement or how far that money would go in India is completely and utterly irrelevant? What part of ‘illegal’ do you not understand? If a farmer in California pays illegal immigrants a few dollars a day, you’re saying he’s a great and wonderful person because the immigrants ‘still make more than they would have back in Mexico’?
I seriously don’t get it.
I withdraw the absolutlist aspect of my statement, but in this case, where the law at issue is there in order to ensure that people are acting in good faith, the law cannot allow an agreement that is “fair but illegal”, as the very definition of “fair” is proscribed by the law.
Isn’t that based entirely on the maids account of events? If her account is accurate, then in any case I agree that Khobragade is a bad person, not just stupid and on the wrong side of the law
I’m not speaking from the perspective if the law. I’ve never tried to make an argument that will stand in a court of law. This issue is contentious because what the maid is being paid is more than fair by Indian standards once you consider room and board were provided. Those may not apply in an American court of law, but considering that they were the only other option available, those should be the standards that apply in the court of public opinion.
Since this matter is never going to trial, we’re dealing with two versions of events that probably will never be corroborated with further evidence.
One one side, there’s the US Attorney’s indictment, and on the other, there’s Khobragade’s allegations. We can’t take the indictment as infallible truth, of course, but it contains a lot of specific information which is of a nature that can probably be verified, contradicted, or agreed to.
On the other hand, Khobragade has related information that is obviously false (like her lawyer stating on CNN that the maid was in fact paid $9.75 an hour, while Khobragade’s filings with the High Court clearly state that was not the case), or grandiose, totally unsubstantiated claims meant to pass blame to someone else (such as, the whole affair was planned by the maid to gain entry to the United States).
I respect that you may come to a different opinion, but I’m having a hard time finding one thing that Khobragade didn’t lie about at one point or another, whereas I think the specific charges leveled by the maid seem greatly more plausible.
I’ve had a few at the bar tonight, so I’m going to party with bldysabba et al for a moment. What if this were some elaborate sting by the US government. We’ve been telling India to knock it off for some time now. But they aren’t taking us seriously. So we found an Indian citizen to trap a consular official in a scheme of our design. Her [the official] employer tells her, “don’t worry. This is how we’ve always done this.” But not this time.
The kernel of the matter is an illegal agreement. I’m not surprised that Khobragade or her lawyer are trying to justify it. At the same time, I have no reason to believe the maid’s account of abuse when she benefits from making the accusations she is making, no matter how specific they may be. What part of the accusations of abuse do you think can be verified? Apart from the wage issue, no part of the abuse allegations can possibly be independently verified.
I’m sorry, that was poorly worded. Allow me to be more precise about the point I’m trying to make. Khobragade and Richards were party to an illegal agreement that benefited them both. This is a factual statement that should not be in doubt, and should require an examination of the ‘exploitation’ argument, although very few people in this thread seem to agree with me.
After this point, two things are possible - either Khobragade did abuse Richards and the moral outrage in this thread is justified, or Richards took the opportunity to renege on their agreement, accuse Khobragade of abuse and benefit even more than she already was doing. Events as they are today are at the very least equally consistent with both possibilities. The incentives being what they were make me believe Richards is the one who is lying. I respect your opinion if you don’t agree with me on this point, but I request you to understand that it is an opinion and requires that you hold it with a certain amount of circumspection, as I do mine.
ETA: Ravenman this isn’t directed at you specifically, I thank you for at least trying to have a meaningful conversation
Why do you think Khobragade filed a lawsuit in India in an attempt to prevent Richards from filing a lawsuit in the United States? Aside from being legally stupid – I mean, come on – if Richards had really perpetrated this fraud on the United States of an illegal immigration scheme, stealing Khobragade’s passport, and so on, why wouldn’t Khobragade want a hearing in US court? She’s the one who kept trying to file a missing persons report. Then, at a certain point, she takes a laughable attempt at excluding the US justice system from pursuing Richards’ case?
Like several other aspects of Khobragade’s story, I think there is a very strong indication that she was simply fabricating things to make the maid look bad. To look at Khobragade’s patterns of lying and evasiveness – let’s not forget that her lawyer claimed on international TV that she had been paying the maid and her family $9.75 an hour, which we can all agree is simply a lie – to take her claims at face value is simply extraordinary to me.
To be perfectly honest, I highly suspect that most people who believe Khobragade’s verison of events are primarily trusting her because she is a higher-status person.
I will also state my own bias that since it has become clear that Richards is being assisted by an NGO that focuses on human trafficking and exploitation of labor, I view that as bolstering her credibility. NGOs who work in such areas tend to be real experts, and could almost certainly suss out someone who is faking these types of alleged abuses. NGOs don’t want to waste their time on people whose stories don’t make sense, so if the NGO continues to assist Richards, I take that as evidence (though not totally conclusive) that her allegations make sense.
Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick.
SHE WASN’T LIVING IN INDIA.
She was living in New York FUCKING City. One of the most expensive cities in the world. Being paid ‘more than in India’ is a bullshit argument, and it’s also completely irrelevant, because ohyeahbytheway the agreement was FUCKING ILLEGAL.
In defense of bldysabba, he has totally acknowledged the illegality of the contract, he just thinks (if I understand this right) that if a worker makes more pay in location A than location B, then they are better off in location A. I totally disagree, but let’s be clear that he acknowledges the illegality.
But I do have another question for him: one can play around with this calculator for cost of living in various US cities. One will find that if a person earns $30,000 a year in Charleston, West Virginia, they would need to earn $71,100 to maintain the same lifestyle in Manhattan.
bldysabba, do you think if John from Charleston moved to Manhattan and was paid a salary of $35,000 (instead of $30,000 in Charleston) that he is better off in Manhattan?
(Aside from the cost of housing, the calculator even shows that groceries are 59% more expensive in New York, utilities are 34% more, health care costs 20% more, etc.)
- India *knows *it has done no injustice to the maid and the maid is a fraud. India still would not have minded the expulsion, indictment, moral lectures, propaganda on CNN etc. being understanding of american position and for the sake of bilateral relationship between 2 countries.
Arrest(be it only for a few hrs) is not fine with people here. In addition to expelling US diplomat, we should also have shown arrest(even for 1 hr) for some violation which had been ignored.
So, Government of India has disappointed the parliament and the people.
- We (and ALOT of countries) simply can’t afford to pay $1500 to workers (some countries pay even their diplomats less than $1500 i guess).* But we gonna still genuinely need workers sometimes.* The rent of a studio apartment on googling was found to be $2000. So we are (most probably) gonna pay $600 only + the stuff like food, accommodation, free weekly leisure trips, medical expenses would be adjusted for $900.
$600 is the max we can afford (which is 4 times what the workers would get if employed in India, he/she won’t get the free stuff).
Workers are now gonna be Govt.'s employees rather than diplomats employees. That would be the difference in paper work.
You genuinely need diplomats. Those diplomats don’t genuinely need maids. India can afford to pay maids at local wages if it chooses to. If it chooses not to, then Indian diplomats can do like the vast majority of Indian and American citizens and go without maid service.
Maids - sometimes, for over-working diplomats.
Drivers, office workers - required more often.
And available, provided India complies with American labor law.
could a mod please fix the typo in the thread title?
it bothers me, and it looks like this thread is going to be around for a while.
thanks.
If any US consular officials have insisted on committing felonies after being specifically asked not to, by all means go right ahead.
It’s good to know that India isn’t run by complete morons, even if you indicate that most of it’s citizens aren’t quite ready to be big boys and girls and set aside useless and petty notions of revenge. As if arresting someone who had nothing to do with Khobragade’s illegal behavior would do anything to mitigate India’s embarrassment on the world stage.
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The US diplomat who we expelled helped maid’s husband(who faced arrest) escape India. Diplomat could have been arrested for obstruction of justice. or the violations that we think we have been ignoring. This would be reciprocity, not revenge.
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People have the right to think most of Indian people and MPs sitting in parliament are morons. Needless to say, such people and such views are moronic.
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Zero question of India feeling “embarrassed on world stage” if we know are doing the right thing. Infact this talk is laughable.