Tag Archives: workers

Forced Labor Continues in Florida

  By la Macha | April 8, 2009 - 1:18 pm |
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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

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Accountability versus Begging.

  By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo | December 8, 2008 - 1:34 pm |
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As somebody who lives in the middle of union world, it disgusts me that blue collar workers have to run all over hell and back begging for their jobs, all the while white collar workers get whatever they want, even if it means kicking blue collar workers out of jobs. How many bank officials did we see on t.v. begging and pleading and promising to ‘make sacrifices’ to get what they needed?

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Family of Trampled Worker to Sue

  By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo | December 3, 2008 - 1:31 pm |
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trampledworker.jpgAs a follow up to the story Mala wrote about earlier in the week about the Wal*Mart worker that was trampled to death by the day after Thanksgiving crowds, there comes the news that the family of the murdered worker, Jdimytai Damour, will be filing a wrongful death suit against Wal*Mart and others:

“We’re going to be suing Wal-Mart as well as the owner of the mall, the security company, and we’re contemplating an action against the police and the county of Nassau, although we’re waiting to see what our investigation fleshes out about their involvement,” Hecht said.

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday against Wal-Mart and the Green Acres Mall in Nassau County, N.Y. Damour, a 6-foot-5, 270-pound temporary worker, died there Friday morning of asphyxiation while trying to shield a pregnant shopper from the throngs of bargain hunters pushing their way into the store in Valley Stream, N.Y.

The suit was filed in New York Supreme Court in the Bronx on behalf of Elsie Damour Phillipe, one of Damour’s sisters.

Nassau County Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey told FOX News on Monday that investigators were scanning surveillance tape in an effort to identify individual shoppers involved in the melee.

“We are reviewing film … from individual cell phones, from cameras that are in place in the store, trying to identify, if in fact we can identify, people that are culpable in this,” Mulvey said. “And it is difficult because a lot of people in the front of the line were pushed forward, and it’s difficult for us to decipher who is more responsible in all of this.”

But Hecht said the retailer should have been prepared for the crowds when it offered sale items that included a Samsung 50-inch Plasma HDTV for $798, a Bissel Compact Upright Vacuum for $28, a Samsung 10.2 megapixel digital camera for $69 and DVDs such as “The Incredible Hulk” for $9.

While I totally support the family’s lawsuit and stand in solidarity with Damour and his co-workers as fellow workers–I have to say things have come to a pretty sad day indeed, when it makes sense that really good deals require extra security and training in order to prevent deaths.

What in the hell is wrong with people? I would try pose a more eloquent question or more eloquent commentary–but it’s just impossible to me. What kind of person literally walks on a human being to get to those damn $69 cameras? What kind of people do something like that?

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Bush Links Auto Industry Bailout to Colombia Trade Bill

  By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo | November 11, 2008 - 9:51 am |
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safeworkerssafejobs.jpgRemember how we all felt so good that Obama recognized that Colombian union leaders were getting murdered by corporations and stated as such during the debates? Remember how the Colombian organization, Association of Indigenous Couincils, wrote their letter to Obama detailing their lives and what they’d like to see happen under an Obama presidency?

Well, now we have President Bush’s response to their reality:

Bush said he would back demands for an auto industry bailout if Democrats support the stalled “free trade” deal with Colombia. Congressional Democrats have held up the deal over human rights concerns. Obama cited the repeated killings of Colombian union leaders during his final debate with John McCain last month. Democrats want to use some of the $700 billion in bailout money for major car companies like General Motors.

Basically, what this boils down to is if people in my community wants jobs, we must sign on to the murder of fellow workers down in Colombia. I vote an emphatic no on that choice. I hope that the unions in my area stick to their pre-election guns and recognize the blatant violent racism they will be participating in if they too, do not reject such a compromise.

via Democracy Now!

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Latin@ Workers Least Likely to Report Work Place Injuries

  By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo | October 10, 2008 - 12:49 pm |
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MigrantWorkersREX_468x236.jpgContinuing the theme of taking care of our Latin@ bodies, I found this very important article from the Chattanooga Times about the level of workplace injuries the Latin@ community deals with. It starts off with a very familiar story:

About a month ago, Ismael Ávila was hit by a car.

At work for a local paving company, he was pushing a large blower along a newly paved driveway when he suddenly found himself flying over the machine.

“The next thing I remember was waking up at the hospital,” Mr. Ávila said in Spanish.

(more…)

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Northwest Tree Planters and Farmworkers United

  By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo | September 9, 2008 - 1:44 pm |
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It’s always inspiring to me to see workers coming together to stand up for their rights in spite of incredible odds, so I was really moved when I learned about the Northwest Tree Planters and Farmworkers United out in Oregon.

This organization works to, “empower farmworkers to understand and take action against systematic exploitation and all of its effects. To achieve this end, PCUN is involved in community and workplace organizing on many different levels.”

The thing is, most of the workers in this organization are from Mexico or Columbia, and many speak indigenous languages rather than Spanish. Not to be deterred, PCUN uses multiple forms of media (including radio and theater) to do educational and grassroots outreach.

Given that employers often work very hard to make sure that traditional tensions between workers are exploited to their benefit, it’s always good to know that some workers are finding ways to negotiate that and become stronger because of it.

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Mississippi ICE Raid Connected to Union Organizing

  By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo | September 4, 2008 - 6:58 pm |
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Remember the ICE raids that happened recently in Mississippi? I just read a really important analysis about those raids and why they happened. Among the article’s assertions (for those of you who hate unions, socialism, etc, be prepared to get angry):

* Many of the undocumented workers were demanding and agreeing to join the local union.

* There was a historical legacy of tension between workers provoked by politicians and lawmakers.

* There is a historical legacy of the company in question being sued by the union and workers for working conditions and infringement on workers rights.

* Although its been reported that the ICE investigation began because of a phone call tip by a union member, ICE refuses to substantiate or otherwise give evidence of the truth of this assertion.

It’s interesting exactly how many of the ICE raids conducted in just this summer alone have been connected to unionization of workers. It seems to me that workers that have citizen papers are cutting off their noses to spite their faces when they rally against undocumented workers. As long as there is an underclass of worker, there will always be a reason to export jobs, no?

via/Political Affairs Magazine

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Evo makes businesses pay workers more

  By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo | May 7, 2007 - 6:37 pm |
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evo-profile.jpgBolivian president Evo Morales signed a decree earlier this month (on May 1, International Workers Day, to be exact) which calls for private companies to give their workers a 5 percent raise.

Labor minister Walter Delgadillo said that the measures looks to “do right” by those who “never receive raises”, unlike public workers, who, incidentally, are calling for raises of their own — of up to 20 percent:

“Some of you are asking for a 20 percent raise in salary. I can’t understand it,” said Morales, who asked that those workers be “patriots” and understand that it isn’t possible to raise salaries by that much.

Perhaps Evo can’t understand it because last year he sliced his own salary in half (to $1700 USD per month) to pay for ten new teachers. Nice gesture, even if the minimum wage in Bolivia is a just 525 Bolivianos — 65 U.S. dollars per month.

Via / EsMas.com

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Chile: Women wear diapers to work non-stop

  By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo | May 4, 2007 - 10:26 am |
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diapers.gifA supermarket chain in Chile is accused of forcing its cashiers to wear diapers to avoid interrupting their work by going to the bathroom:

Going to the bathroom is prohibited during work hours. This is one of the unjust obligations that cashiers at the Chilean supermarket chain Santa Isabel have to fulfill, according to the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT) union.

A union spokesperson said on Thursday that the women working at these establishments “are made to work 9 hours at their cash registers without being allowed to move,” which requires that they wear diapers since they cannot go to the bathroom.

The chain is denying that they’ve done anything wrong. President Bachelet, where are you?

Via / Diario ADN

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