"The Whistleblower"

..a 45-year-old American named Joshua Farinella flew into the city of Amalapuram near India’s eastern coast to start his new job as the general manager at a shrimp-processing plant owned by a company called Choice Canning. ..He soon discovered that the plant’s largely female employees were effectively trapped on the compound, routinely underpaid, and forced to live in inhumane, unsanitary conditions. The managers were also misleading auditors and processing shrimp with banned antibiotics. It soon dawned on him that he’d been hired as an American face to “whitewash” a forced-labor factory.

.. On any given day, there might be more than 650 workers at the plant, typically hired by third-party contractors. Hundreds of the workers lived locally in Andhra Pradesh.. ..The rest were migrant workers recruited from impoverished corners of the country who lived at the plant.. ..migrant workers living on the compound in deplorable circumstances, like shared beds with bedbug-infested mattresses. There were also dangerous conditions, including a secret dorm above the plants’ ammonia compressors. He realized there were hundreds more people living on site than the paperwork accounted for, and they could not freely leave.. ..The workers alleged that the plant’s labor contractor stole approximately $2,600 in wages, equivalent to about two years of an average worker’s salary. They also demanded a manager be charged for abusive language under Indian legislation that seeks to prevent hate crimes against members of underprivileged castes — many of the workers were members of India’s lowest caste, called Dalits, or untouchables. .. workers sleeping on the floor.. ..150 workers had not had a day off in a year..

Choice Canning categorically denied Farinella’s claims and said that the company never underpaid workers, prevented them from leaving without permission, or maintained subpar living conditions.