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21st Century U.S. Slavery: Immigrant Farm Workers |
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Although slavery was officially banned in the United States more than 130 years ago, some immigrant workers who pick the crops that end up on our dinner tables still are enslaved.
Earlier this month, federal officials in south Florida arrested Antonia Zuniga Vargas on a 17-count indictment, charging her with conspiring to make money off workers from Mexico and Guatemala, forging documents and committing identity theft. Vargas, along with five other co-defendants, is connected to a business operation in Immokalee, Fla., allegedly created to hold workers in involuntary servitude and peonage.
Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney Doug Molloy told the Fort Myers News-Press Vargas and the others are charged with:
…slavery, plain and simple. Some of the folks have been there for years. It is the hope to send back money to their families, and they hang on to that hope. It’s just a situation that’s difficult to get out of.
According to the federal indictment, the co-defendants, for more than two years, held more than a dozen people as slaves on their property. They made them sleep in box trucks and shacks, charged them for food and showers, didn’t pay them for picking produce and beat them if they tried to leave. The documents list 13 instances when the workers were beaten.
Since 1997, federal civil rights officials have prosecuted five such slavery operations run by Florida growers, involving more than 1,000 workers.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who visited farm workers in the south Florida fields the day after the slavery arrests, says:
The idea that in the year 2008, in the United States of America, people are being indicted for slavery is almost beyond comprehension. Yet this indictment sheds a light on the kind of conditions tomato workers in Florida are forced to live in. (See video above.)
Farm workers who pick tomatoes for the fast-food industry are among this country’s most exploited workers. Those who work in the tomato fields throughout Florida earn subpoverty wages and have no health care coverage or freedom to form unions. Growers have paid the farm workers in that state roughly the same wages for the past 30 years.
In April, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) won a groundbreaking agreement with McDonald’s, the world’s largest restaurant chain. The fast-food giant agreed to pay a penny more per pound to workers harvesting tomatoes, which means the workers will get 72 cents to 77 cents for every 32-pound bucket of tomatoes they pick, up from 40 cents to 45 cents.
But Burger King, the world’s second-largest burger chain, has rejected working with the CIW to improve farm workers’ wages and conditions. Instead, it has joined with extreme conservatives and the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange to fight the agreements. In fact, to discourage the growers from paying a mere penny more per pound, the growers exchange has threatened to fine any grower that participates in the agreements $100,000.
Says Sanders:
For a major company like Burger King not to pay that additional penny and raise workers’ wages and improve their conditions is unconscionable.
Sanders released two letters, which he and three other U.S. senators—Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio)—sent to John Chidsey, CEO of Burger King, and Reggie Brown, head of the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, urging them to improve farm worker wages and end the exploitation of Florida’s tomato harvesters. Click here to read the two letters.
At a press conference, Sanders condemned Burger King and Goldman Sachs, one of three multibillion-dollar private equity firms that own a substantial share of Burger King stock, for refusing to pay the tomato pickers a decent wage:
The American people need to understand why it is that huge multi-national corporations that make billions in profits are unable to pay people who supply the products they use a living wage. They need to know why financial institutions like Goldman-Sachs and others, who have major holdings in companies like Burger King, are not applying the proper moral leverage to bring about the necessary changes.
What happens in Immokalee affects all workers, Sanders says:
Now some people might say, “Well, I don’t pick tomatoes why do I have to worry about it?” And the answer is that so long as these types of abysmal working conditions exist in the U.S., they create a culture which leads us to the race to the bottom…which says that any worker can be subject to arbitrary actions on the part of an employer. Just create a very, very strong anti-worker culture, which is part of the destruction of the middle class, the increase in poverty, the lack of respect for working people in this country
Meanwhile, activists with the anti-poverty action group OxFam joined farm workers to deliver petitions with 28,000 signatures to Chidsey, demanding that the Immokalee workers receive more pay and better working conditions. (You can act now to help the Immokalee workers by clicking here to sign the OxFam petition.)
Over the weekend, 55 union members, activists and students rallied at a Burger King restaurant in Knoxville, Tenn., calling on the chain to treat the tomato pickers with respect.
On The National blog, Katrina Vanden Heuvel points out that President Bush and conservatives ignore outrages like slavery in Immokalee:
“We must ensure that all life is treated with the dignity it deserves,” President Bush declared during his final State of the Union address. He then segued into a call to ban human cloning. He didn’t talk about dignity in terms of ravaged pensions, working longer hours for lower wages, and the loss of healthcare and other benefits. And he certainly didn’t talk about dignity when it comes to migrant workers in Immokalee, Florida where—as Senator Bernie Sanders told me just days before Bush’s SOTU—“the norm is a disaster, and the extreme is slavery.”
Working people understand what’s at stake and strongly support the Immokalee workers. AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker, who joined the Immokalee workers in a rally and march on Burger King headquarters in November, told workers she takes to heart their struggle because of her own experiences.
Like so many of you, I know what it is like to struggle just for survival. I grew up in the poverty of west Texas. My mother was a domestic worker; my father was a day laborer who did not have the benefit of belonging to a union.
I had a dream to make people’s lives better, and I was fortunate to get a job with my union and become an organizer. Now my new job is to help others organize and bring justice to our communities. That’s what the AFL-CIO is about, and that’s what the Coalition of Immokalee Workers is about.
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This will sound bad but how many of these tomatoe pickers are here Illegally and what did they expect I’m not saying its right but I find it hard to feel sorry for them.You said in the article they work here and send the money back to their home countries.I feel all the companies should be prosecuted for what they have done but if our laws were enforced these poor souls would not be here to be exploited.
Supporting Chinese goods is also slavery. We hold our nose and ignore the human rights abuses while we buy our low cost dvd players. People lived with slavery because most didn’t see or smell the abuses of it. It is the same with China. We have to buy American in order to force China to free it’s people.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080131/wl_nm/china_weather_dc_34
http://www.freedomsringmall.com
Some employers, when it’s payday, call the Boder Patrol. By having open borders, the government is a part of this scheme of slavery.
I see the article refers to these ‘victims’ as ‘immigrant’ workers. I take issue with that. Just how many of these workers are in this country illegally? If one is in this country (my home) illegally (undocumented) then one is a home invader, not an immigrant. And while I do not condone the kind of treatment they have endured I can offer them a simple solution to end their torment, STOP INVADING MY HOME! Be legal or be gone!
I will grant you that there are illegals here who are easily exploited, but there are legals here who are also easily exploited. Until this country can figure out what the difference is, then all people who are exploited are slaves. This country has allowed this to continue for a long, long time, and it is wrong in doing so. If we had strong immigration laws and worker protections, as well as proper enforcement of such, illegals wouldn’t stand a chance to be able to slip through the cracks and be at the mercy of unscrupulous American businesses. Now, even if illegals, and legals wanted to return to their own countries, seeing how difficult it is to survive here, they cannot go back - they are not allowed to. We created the problem; then we blame everyone but ourselves for it.
Dr, You are right, Your post did sound bad and the responses from No Amnesty was even more pathetic.
No Union Man worth his salt would say such things.
Our struggle is a Universal Struggle, all Workers United for Justice. Whether you are from the USA, China, Mexico, etc. all Workers deserve Fair Wages, Safe Working Conditions, Quality Health Care, 40hr or less work weeks, Pensions, etc., in short , Economic , Social and Political Justice. That is what the Labor Movement has always stood for. And it always will!
Whether the terminology is outright “SLAVERY” or simply a modern version of “INDENTURED SERVITUDE,” it should be a cause that Labor leads the fight to end. The “legal” status of citizenship is irrelevant with respect to HUMAN RIGHTS. My dog has no legal citizenship in the U.S. but he still has some limited protection granted to him by animal rights prohibiting CRUELTY. Are illegals entitled to less protections than our animals? These human beings were beaten for the purpose of trying to escape; thirteen documented instances. Labor’s stance on the immigration policies of the United States is a separate legislative issue of equal importance. Stiffer penalties for those caught exploiting the exploitable for profit should be included in that policy. This is as clear as Human Rights will ever become and should be dealt with as such. To suggest that SLAVERY, in any form, should be tolerated utilizing the rationale that the “illegal” status of one’s citizenship justifies such a practice is irresponsible, uncompassionate, and immoral. We, as a movement, are better than that. If the slavery of illegals becomes justified and acceptable; will the rape and/or murder of illegals be next? If the word “VICTIM” is not appropriate; then, what word is for someone subjected to such an abuse as SLAVERY?
Once upon a time, back when I was a Labor Council President; I encountered a labor manager at a large scale poultry plant that had a sweet little racket. She would bring in a group of 10-15 illegals at a time to work for her boss. She had two surrogates that would do the recruiting in Mexico. These guys would tell the illegals that they could provide safe passage to America, employment once they arrived, as well as food and shelter; moreover, they were told that they would gain legal citizenship. The only thing required in return was hard work…very hard work.
The scheme began once they arrived by informing them that they would need to keep a low profile in order to avoid deportation. So, they feared the police more than anything else. They were taken to slum housing where they were forced to share a 1 or 2 bedroom shack. The payroll came every 2 weeks with a 2-week delay and the group would always enter employment in the middle of a cycle. So at the end of 5 weeks, they should expect to receive their first check for 3 weeks pay. They were told how much the rent and food would cost and that after they earned their first paycheck; how to re-pay the “loan” that was accumulated over the 5 week period.
In the hours leading up to payday, INS would be called on the “suspected” illegals, anonymously of course. The call would come sooner for those who got out of line or too sick to work. An exception was made for the illegals that were noticeably productive. They were allowed to stay and continue working under the ruse that legal citizenship was in their future. False IDs were manufactured and sold to them for amounts that would require months of payments. The labor manager became a slum-lord to them and the illegals were none the wiser. They were being exploited…victimized, if you will.
This labor manager and her accomplices were eventually sent to prison for forging documents and committing identity theft. Her employer claimed that she had acted unilaterally. They said her actions were appalling, although occurring unabated right under their noses. They applauded the verdict of the juries, but did not make restitution to the victims that their stockholders profited from because no civil suit was ever pursued. There was some question as to whether citizenship status would entitle illegals to any rights under U.S. civil law. She got a 10-year sentence. I quit following it after that. She may have gotten out early on probation and changed her name to Antonia Zuniga Vargas, for all I know.
To Fraternal Order: I had read about similar stories like the one you have written about. It’s disgusting how inhumane some people are. I support the American Farm Workers Union, and I receive information all the time about the horrible conditions these workers have to endure, and it doesn’t matter what their status is in this country, they are treated horribly, like slaves, living in slum conditions, being cheated out of meager paychecks, and if illegal, being promised citizenship that will NEVER come. We treat the American Indians the same way. Yes, there are two Americas and the “other half” just doesn’t want to acknowledge it.
This is a human rights issue, and before citizenship is even addressed, we MUST solve the problems of our own human rights violations; that must be a priority for our country, and I will continue to speak out against these atrocities.
Because these Mexican and Guatemalan migrant farm workers came here illegally, they could not join the United Farm Workers Union. Therefore, they were exploited by the employers. In retrospect, any government that encourages or gives comfort to employers which hire illegal workers is guilty of supporting slavery.
In response to Dr.
It doesn’t matter if these people are here illegally. In the United States it is against the law to hold someone against their will, period. After all we recognize the first Africans brought here against their will as slaves. They weren’t even brought here illegally if you want to get technical about it. The fact of the matter is that these people were exploited, while no one did anything to stop it. These tragedies must stop, we all must work to make them stop.