How a remote US military base became the front line of a battle for equal pay for Filipino workers overseas

Hundreds employed by a major U.S. defense contractor are allegedly trapped at Diego Garcia island in the Indian Ocean due to a minimum wage dispute.

By ICIJ

Image: Pictures From History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

November 1, 2022

Diego Garcia, an island situated in the Indian Ocean halfway between Africa and Indonesia, is the site of a joint military facility of the United Kingdom and the United States.

Hundreds of Filipino workers are stranded at a remote U.S. military base on an Indian Ocean island due to a minimum wage dispute, according to investigations by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism and The Washington Post.

Some workers for Kellogg Brown & Root have not left the island, Diego Garcia, for more than three years as Philippine officials told the major American contractor that it must raise employee pay to meet the U.S. federal minimum wage rate in 2020.

Workers told Trafficking Inc. reporting partners that they fear losing their jobs if they head home before the wage dispute is resolved. Furthermore, the Philippine government alleges that KBR has canceled regular charter flights from the base to the Philippines since the start of this year as a form of “emotional blackmail.”

How this battle for equal pay will be resolved may set a precedent for other contracts with Filipino workers in other U.S. military bases, Joanna Concepcion, chair of the Filipino migrants group Migrante, told PCIJ.

Read the full stories at the PCIJ and The Washington Post.