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New Abolitionists Fight Slavery in Tomato Fields |
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The slave trade in the United States was banned 200 years ago, but in the tomato fields of south Florida, modern-day slavery still thrives.
Farm workers who pick tomatoes for the fast-food industry are among this country’s most exploited workers. They sometimes are held against their will, beaten and forced to work for little or no pay. Thousands more are trying to survive with poverty wages, no overtime pay, no sick leave and no freedom to join unions for a better life.
Today, many of those workers joined with members of Congress and union and human rights leaders to kick off a new abolitionist movement to eliminate modern-day slavery in America’s produce fields.
The workers are reaching out to 1 million people to sign a petition demanding that Burger King and food industry leaders work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to improve the wages and conditions for the workers who pick tomatoes, and join an industrywide effort to eliminate slavery and human rights abuses from Florida’s fields.
Last April, the 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 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 hamburger 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 impose a $100,000 fine on any grower that participates in the agreements.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who signed the petition, told a Capitol Hill rally to launch the campaign:
I come here with a message for every woman and man who picks tomatoes: You are not alone. We know about your courage, (and) we’re proud of you for standing up for what’s right. Your struggle is our struggle. Your dream is our dream. Your goal is our goal. And we’re going to be right beside you until the morning arrives when you win what you deserve, when you have better pay and decent conditions, when you and your hard work are respected and honored, when justice is finally done!
Members of Congress, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio ) and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), also signed the petition. You can sign the petition by clicking here.
In January, federal officials in south Florida arrested six people, charging them with conspiring to make money off workers from Mexico and Guatemala, forging documents and committing identity theft. The six are connected to a business operation in Immokalee, Fla., allegedly created to hold workers in involuntary servitude and peonage.
Lucas Benitez, a member of the CIW and winner of the 2003 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, told the crowd:
In the tradition of the abolitionist movement, where legislators, consumers and workers joining to demand sugar free from the scourge of slavery helped bring an end to the slave trade, this petition marks the strength of a growing alliance in the U.S. demanding fair food and an end to slavery in its modern-day form. Both in Washington today and across the nation, the struggle against the existence of humiliating and often brutal forms of forced labor in America’s produce fields may no longer be ignored.
Monika Kalra Varma, director of Robert F. Kennedy Center, added:
When members of Congress passed the Slave Trade Act of 1808, certainly none would have believed 200 years later that slavery would still exist in the United States of America. Generations later, it is only right that we stand in front of the Capitol, a building built with the help of slave labor, with members of Congress, farm workers and their supporters to acknowledge our shared obligations to work to end slavery and rights abuses in this country and to demand the mass consumers of Florida’s produce, like Burger King, partner with workers to realize these goals.
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See, this is what I come to the AFLCIO blog for! Not endless posts of McCain bashing and political spin.
I know this is about Labor but, I wanted to share this article and picture, during the Pledge of Allegiance to . the Flag of the U. S. Where is the respect? America. Notice Senator Clinton,Gov.Bill Richardson, and Senator Obama. He is the only one without his hand over his heart.
Tell the truth these slaves are illegal aliens that are being explioted by business and more arrest need to be made.I am very sick of the AFL-CIO trying to make this more than it is.They came here illegally what did they expect when they got here,streets paved in gold.I’m not saying its right they are treated this way but i feel no obligation to them.You should be working to get our government to defend our borders and uphold our laws.Enforcement of existing law will end most of this.
The plight of most U.S. agricultural workers is the same; low wages, no respect and slave like conditions.
The U.S. labor movement is right in joining the struggle to come to the assistance of these hard working men and women! Whether they are here “legally” or not isn’t the issue. The real issue is that they are being treated less than any human being should be treated! The fact is the U.S. is NOT such a free country as we are led to believe!
Union people should know better: There are no “illegal” humans!
As far as immigrant-bashing goes, immigrants – either documented or undocumented – are scapegoats of the otherwise ill-informed. Migrant workers have picked our crops for a period of time dating back to the early 1900’s.
What are migrant workers? They are workers who travel from location to location as needed to perform the labor of planting and harvesting crops. Sometimes they travel from state to state, and sometimes to different areas within a single state. They usually do not work for just one grower, but instead may work for several – each in different locations – during “peak” planting and harvesting seasons. Growers employ migrant workers seasonally because they usually do not have enough work for them all year long.
Are Anglos willing to be migrant farm workers? Here’s what Libby Whitley, an agricultural labor consultant who until recently was a labor specialist with the American Farm Bureau Federation has to say on that issue:
* “Their average wage is around $6.00 an hour. How much would it cost to find native-born Americans to replace them in the fields? Let’s say $12 an hour, which most agriculture experts think is a very conservative estimate. That means wages will jump 100 percent.
Multiply the doubling of wages times 20 percent, since economists say labor costs represent about one-fifth of food prices. Assuming that demand holds constant, what it all adds up to is a 40 percent increase in the cost of farm produce.
It’s not just money that keeps Americans out of those fields. You’ll leave your friends and family. You’ll live in a house trailer in an orchard, do your cooking in a group kitchen. And the job will only last for three months. Will you do it?
It’s not just the pay, it’s the nature of the work. It’s outdoors, it’s often in unpleasant weather, it’s physical, it’s hard. It hurts your back. It’s short term. And you can’t even guarantee tenure of work. If there’s a bad freeze or a hailstorm just as a crop is ready to be picked, you’re not guaranteed anything. You go home empty-handed. That’s the nature of nature. And that’s the nature of farm work.”
Someone reading this may say, “Ok. let’s let them keep the crap jobs, but what about construction and jobs in other industries like garment? Those should be for Americans only.”
In addition to echoing a slave-mentality, such thinking ignores one all-important fact: Most of construction is non-union! The same is true for the garment industry. If those jobs paid union scale, with union benefits, there would be no incentive for companies to employ workers other than those who can actually do the work.
Throughout the U.S. construction workers often work on non-union jobs when union jobs are not available. When doing so they aid and abet anti-union employers who hire the cheapest source of labor. And some people have the gall to blame that on immigrants! Who was to blame 30, 20, or 10 years ago? Who were the scapegoats back then?
Here is another fact that is too often removed from the immigration debate: Since the passage of NAFTA, workers in Mexico have seen their purchasing power reduced by 50%. Think about that. How would you be getting by if you made half as much today as you did in 1993? And to compound that problem U.S based giant grain growers have flooded the Mexican market with cheap (at least for now) corn thus causing the demise of countless family farmers in that nation.
And let’s don’t think for one moment that people in other countries wake up on sun-shining mornings and decide to migrate for the heck of it. Almost without exception people migrate out of desperation. They migrate so they can feed their families.
Immigrant-bashing is self-defeating. It demonizes fellow workers while allowing the real culprits – the lawmakers who shoved NAFTA down our throats, and the corporate interests that paid them to do so – off the hook. By keeping working people fighting amongst ourselves they avoid having to face the consequences for selling out workers in the U.S. and elsewhere.
The DNA of America stands for “Do Not Acknowledge”. Do not acknowledge that Americans themselves are the ones who allow sell-out politicians to stay in office. Immigrants don’t vote for them, we do!
We refuse to acknowledge that we are the ones who are failing to organize the unorganized.
Whether it be the [illegal] war on Iraq, or the health care crisis, or NAFTA, or the theft of our pensions, or unaffordable housing or under-funded public education, OR THE ATTACKS ON ORGANIZED LABOR, it is we the “citizen” voters who allow our living standards and economic security to be undermined by anti-people laws. How? Because we keep electing people who keep screwing us!
Rather than taking responsibility for our lack of militancy, rather than acknowledging our DNA, too many people try to take the easy way out: They look for scapegoats in order to alibi their own lack of action. They refuse to accept responsibility for allowing the trashing of working class people by the military/industrial/political complex!
So take your pick: Sit on the sidelines and whine and blame, or do what working people should do: Agitate, educate, organize! Remember, all boats rise on an incoming tide.
United we stand, divided we fall. An injury to one is an injury to all.
*Please note: I, for one, believe that $12 - $15 per hour should be the minimum wage for everyone working in our nation. Does that mean we would automatically pay a lot more for produce and other essentials? No. Perhaps stockholders should be made to lower their expectations just a tad. Instead of getting all that is available in dividends they can instead reduce their expectations to almost all that is available. I won’t even go into the billions of dollars squandered on overpaid corporate CEOs.
Small business owners who are barely able to eke out livings should receive subsidies to offset an otherwise prohibitive minimum wage. They are, after all, also being victimized by unscrupulous multi-national conglomerates and henchmen in Congress.
Doubling of the wage only amounts to a 20% increase in the end cost of produce, an increase I am more than willing to pay to bring fair compensation to the farm workers!
This article doesn’t really discuss legal and illegal. If the workers are in this country legally then I’m on their side all the way. On the other hand, if they’re illegals all I have to say is, GET OUT! Go home or go elsewhere. I don’t really care. But this is MY COUNTRY and anyone who is in MY COUNTRY illegally IS NOT WELCOME NOW and NEVER WILL BE!
Comment to Rich A:
Alas, people in America will do anything to keep low prices for food, clothing etc. Even if that means hiring illegals and off-shoring jobs. I believe if wages were raised for farm workers, we returned most garment jobs to the U.S., there would be a public outcry once the higher prices hit the stores.