This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross, who's off this week.

As climate change generates more catastrophic weather events, helping communities rebuild

after floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes has become a big business.

There are firms that specialize in the work, and thousands of workers, many of them immigrants

who move from one disaster to the next, getting temporary employment, and sometimes being exploited

by unscrupulous contractors.

Our guest today, Socket Sony, tells the story of hundreds of welders and pipefitters

who were recruited from India to come to the Gulf Coast to repair oil rigs after Hurricane

Katrina in 2006, and found themselves trapped in a nightmare.

After paying a small fortune, expecting they'd get good wages and a green card to bring

their families to America, they found themselves living in a squalid work camp, surrounded by

barbed wire. Sony is a labor organizer who works among migrant workers, and after

meeting many of the men, he planned a daring move to convince the workers to escape their

camp and get the Justice Department to charge their employer with human trafficking.

The campaign would include a march on Washington, meetings with lawyers and members of Congress,

and plenty of hardship and heartbreak before the workers got their day in court.

Socket Sony is founder and director of Resilience Force, a nonprofit that advocates for

workers who rebuild communities after weather disasters.

His new book is The Great Escape, a true story of forced labor and immigrant dreams in

America.

Socket Sony, welcome to Fresh Air.

Thank you so much, Dave.

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