VivirLatino

This is one of the many consequences of criminalizing and dehumanizing those in the U.S. without proper documentation. Workers who are here legally, who have those precious papers, work in reprehensible conditions and have almost no power at all to fight back.

The U.S. Department of Justice reports a new case of forced labor in Florida agriculture. This is the seventh confirmed case of forced labor in the last decade in the state.

The report describes poor working conditions as well as workers being chained to poles, beaten, robbed, and locked inside trucks. A 17-count federal indictment outlines how a dozen workers living on a farm were forced to sleep in trucks and shacks, went unpaid for their work, and had to pay for food and showers. The cases were reported at the Six L’s and Pacific Tomato Growers farms. Both the farms are certified by the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange Socially Accountable Farm Employers program, which is supposed to prevent labor abuses.

In 13 confirmed cases, workers were beaten, including for trying to leave the farm. The workers also had their identification documents held to keep them from escaping.

To all those people who insist that they “support” those here legally–what is your answer to this? How do these workers get more power when the corporations employing them know damn well how to play a system against workers with limited or no power?

Via Labor Notes