Modern day slavery in the West

[Aimless]

No, not left-wing "they don't get dental insurance" slavery. Like, actual slavery... in the tomato industry??!

I was on a google trek trying to find out why tomatoes taste great in season and rubbish out of season, when I came across a few articles about enslaved tomato-pickers in Florida (the state famous for producing bad tomatoes). Hadn't heard about it before, but here's an excerpt from one article:

But these overworked, poorly paid workers are the lucky ones. In Immokalee, some migrant farm workers face far harsher conditions as slaves. Not “virtual” wage slaves, but actual slaves – kidnapped or tricked into captivity by slave traders, sold to field bosses as property, and confined at night in locked trucks or sheds, threatened or beaten if they try to escape, and sometimes even chained. Their wages, paid by tomato farmers, are confiscated by the subcontractors who supervise slave workers and bring them to and from the fields.

In Tomatoland, Estabrook profiles one such slave, Lucas Mariano Domingo, a migrant Guatemalan worker who had come to the United States seeking farm work with the hope of supporting a sick parent back home. Instead, he was tricked by an Immokalee slave boss, Cesar Navarette, who promised good pay, good food and a safe place to live, only to hold Domingo captive for two years in a slave camp where Domingo was forced to work all day in fields under Navarette’s direction and live in the back of a box truck with three other men, no heat or air conditioning and no toilet. Navarette’s slaves were regularly recaptured and beaten if they tried to escape.

Domingo finally escaped his captors in 2009 and reported them to the police; they were prosecuted for violating the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits slavery. But according to District Attorney Douglas Malloy, other slavers continue to operate in Immokalee.

And a brief mention in the daily kos:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/0...-Tomato-Fields

Is there nothing we won't pervert?

[Aimless]

Slightly more detailed account:

http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000...?currentPage=1

The beige stucco house at 209 South Seventh Street is remarkable only because it is in better repair than most Immokalee dwellings. For two and a half years, beginning in April 2005, Mariano Lucas Domingo, along with several other men, was held as a slave at that address. At first, the deal must have seemed reasonable. Lucas, a Guatemalan in his thirties, had slipped across the border to make money to send home for the care of an ailing parent. He expected to earn about $200 a week in the fields. Cesar Navarrete, then a 23-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico, agreed to provide room and board at his family’s home on South Seventh Street and extend credit to cover the periods when there were no tomatoes to pick.

Lucas’s “room” turned out to be the back of a box truck in the junk-strewn yard, shared with two or three other workers. It lacked running water and a toilet, so occupants urinated and defecated in a corner. For that, Navarrete docked Lucas’s pay by $20 a week. According to court papers, he also charged Lucas for two meager meals a day: eggs, beans, rice, tortillas, and, occasionally, some sort of meat. Cold showers from a garden hose in the backyard were $5 each. Everything had a price. Lucas was soon $300 in debt. After a month of ten-hour workdays, he figured he should have paid that debt off.

But when Lucas—slightly built and standing less than five and a half feet tall—inquired about the balance, Navarrete threatened to beat him should he ever try to leave. Instead of providing an accounting, Navarrete took Lucas’s paychecks, cashed them, and randomly doled out pocket money, $20 some weeks, other weeks $50. Over the years, Navarrete and members of his extended family deprived Lucas of $55,000.

Taking a day off was not an option. If Lucas became ill or was too exhausted to work, he was kicked in the head, beaten, and locked in the back of the truck. Other members of Navarrete’s dozen-man crew were slashed with knives, tied to posts, and shackled in chains. On November 18, 2007, Lucas was again locked inside the truck. As dawn broke, he noticed a faint light shining through a hole in the roof. Jumping up, he secured a hand hold and punched himself through. He was free.

What happened at Navarrete’s home would have been horrific enough if it were an isolated case. Unfortunately, involuntary servitude—slavery—is alive and well in Florida. Since 1997, law-enforcement officials have freed more than 1,000 men and women in seven different cases. And those are only the instances that resulted in convictions. Frightened, undocumented, mistrustful of the police, and speaking little or no English, most slaves refuse to testify, which means their captors cannot be tried. “Unlike victims of other crimes, slaves don’t report themselves,” said Molloy, who was one of the prosecutors on the Navarrete case. “They hide from us in plain sight.”

[Nessus]

So long as only brown people are held captive, I don't see the problem

[CitizenCain]

So long as only brown people are held captive, I don't see the problem

Happens to white women too, unfortunately.

Anyone whom society "doesn't like" is, at best, ignored by the legal system. Could be worse, and the government could find out about the existence of these people... at which point the BCIS will jail them and deport them for being here illegally. More or less the same shit that happens when a hooker tries to go to the cops for whatever legitimate reason. Thanks for the police report, here's the list of criminal charges we're holding you on, and we'll get around to jailing your rapist/pimp/etc. three days after the end of time.

[Aimless]

It's incredible that crappy tomatoes can motivate such cruelty. It's true what they say about progress I suppose

[Nessus]

It's a combination of what Loki and Mittens say, "people act based on their self-interests" and "corporations are people, my friend".

[CitizenCain]

It's incredible that crappy tomatoes can motivate such cruelty.

So you think it's the tomatoes, and not the money? How... typical.

[Dreadnaught]

DailyKos is not a trustworthy site.

However, this is a major issue. It's mostly entirely the product of:

1) The US having a broken immigration system.

2) The US having a relatively unsecured southern border.

3) The US having a failed state on its semi-unsecured southern border.

It's a ripe situation to exploit people in terrible ways. This is a big country, and it's hard to spot these things once people are "inside", which is why we need to do a much better job of stopping this from even starting.

[GGT]

Same thing happens in the "Strawberry Fields" of California.

Migrant farm workers, including legal US citizens, are often 'held captive' during harvest season all along the migrant trail. Sometimes it starts out as a paid bus or train ticket, in exchange for future work, housing, and wages. The very poor and desperate can be exploited by that, and find their "housing" is a decrepit trailer in the fields---with no running water or toilet---and "rent" that equals two weeks of picking. Then they have to get a wage 'advancement' to buy food from their boss, since they don't have a car and are stuck in the middle of nowhere. If the arrangement included "room and board", that can mean rice and beans once a day. Sometimes they have to buy drinking water while in the fields, or rely on the boss to drive by with water in the back of his pick-up truck.

Vicious cycle with disastrous (but cheap and productive) results for the grower: take desperate/uneducated people, offer them a job with 'perks' up front, isolate them upon arrival, and keep them in debt/indebted for as long as possible. They eventually leave with just enough money to be dropped off at the nearest bus station or highway, with 'recruiters' from the next stop north. Rinse, repeat.

Dread, you're right on the list of broken things, but it doesn't mention the scruples and personal accountability that's lacking among the farmers/employers themselves. We could try to fix everything on your list, but still have abuse and exploitation of migrant workers. Being migratory puts them at risk, legal or not.

[Loki]

Quite frankly, I think the only real "solution" is to have a large chunk of the agricultural industry disappear. If these farmers can't turn a profit without paying their workers a few dollars an hour (or nothing, as is the case here), then why insist on keeping this industry inside the US? There are some large agri-farms that would survive even if labor costs went up, though it would also lead to higher food prices. But ultimately, those farms that rely on people harvesting their land should move to the third world where they belong (i.e. where they can turn a profit). Of course, the same people who complain about illegal immigrants and their mistreatment oppose this form of "off-shoring".

DailyKos is not a trustworthy site.

However, this is a major issue. It's mostly entirely the product of:

1) The US having a broken immigration system.

2) The US having a relatively unsecured southern border.

3) The US having a failed state on its semi-unsecured southern border.

It's a ripe situation to exploit people in terrible ways. This is a big country, and it's hard to spot these things once people are "inside", which is why we need to do a much better job of stopping this from even starting.

The disparity in income between the US and Mexico is so high that we'd need to implement incredibly harsh immigration policies (e.g. shoot to kill) and enforce them without exception in order to deter most would-be laborers from Mexico. It's not a viable solution either economically or ethically.

[CitizenCain]

Quite frankly, I think the only real "solution" is to have a large chunk of the agricultural industry disappear. If these farmers can't turn a profit without paying their workers a few dollars an hour (or nothing, as is the case here), then why insist on keeping this industry inside the US?

The other side of the coin (as I see it) is if someone's willing to exchange their labor for a few bucks an hour because it's a fortune where they come from, and some American wants to make that exchange, why the fuck is this a problem that we need a multitude of laws to prevent?

[GGT]

Land owners oppose off-whoring as well. Especially Big Ag conglomerates that can't pick up and move several thousand acres of yield-producing land.

During the housing bubble, though....many landowners sold fertile fields to land developers, based solely on profit models. Short-term, those farmers made multiple millions for selling a few hundred acres that became 'subdivisions', and suburban sprawl. Long-term, they could "invest" in other commodities or the stock market, and make multiple millions more. Municipalities and townships made money by gaining a larger tax base (since we tax housing higher than agricultural land).

Eventually, people started noticing and complaining that things weren't working quite right. When buying necessities like food or fuel includes (true and rising) transportation and (hidden) import costs, while ignoring a shrinking domestic labor force with plummeting housing values....that's the recipe for disaster that's playing out before our very eyes.

[Loki]

The other side of the coin (as I see it) is if someone's willing to exchange their labor for a few bucks an hour because it's a fortune where they come from, and some American wants to make that exchange, why the fuck is this a problem that we need a multitude of laws to prevent?

It depends on whether you think illegal immigration is a major problem. If you don't, your logic makes perfect sense. If you do think it's a problem, then you have to acknowledge that these farmers are producing a massive negative externality by luring millions of uneducated young males who can't speak English, which puts a huge burden on social services in the areas where they live.

Land owners oppose off-whoring as well. Especially Big Ag conglomerates that can't pick up and move several thousand acres of yield-producing land.

If they want to pay a wage that virtually no one in this country is willing to work for, then perhaps they should move to a country where people are willing to work for that wage. Or they can use their land to grow things that aren't as labor-intensive. Why not open factories in the US that pay $2 an hour and then use that as a way to lure in millions of third world migrants?

[CitizenCain]

which puts a huge burden on social services

Oh, you mean that thing the government and the tyranny of the majority use as an excuse to steal half my shit? Fuck social services and the theft that finances them.

[Loki]

Oh, you mean that thing the government and the tyranny of the majority use as an excuse to steal half my shit? Fuck social services and the theft that finances them.

Except having a large demand for these services means that either you won't be able to get them when you need them or that "half your shit" will turn into "two thirds of your shit".

[Aimless]

So you think it's the tomatoes, and not the money?

Tomato-money. Ultimately it all comes down to the tomato-addiction of the American populace.

[GGT]

If they want to pay a wage that virtually no one in this country is willing to work for, then perhaps they should move to a country where people are willing to work for that wage. Or they can use their land to grow things that aren't as labor-intensive. Why not open factories in the US that pay $2 an hour and then use that as a way to lure in millions of third world migrants?

You're conflating things between landowners and their employees, manual labor and factory labor. De-tassling corn isn't something a factory worker does. It used to be a field-intensive step in corn processing that would pay workers several times minimum wage. One season de-tassling corn could mean a two year's worth in college tuition.

De-tassling corn by hand, row-by-row, used to be a high-paying seasonal job in the corn belt as late as the 1980's. I'm not sure about specifics, but it seems similar to picking cotton by hand until machinery caught up in the 40's and 50's. R & D lead to hybrid corn seeds that didn't need such labor-intensive steps and hand de-tassling, and consequently, needed less labor. Fewer jobs for high school kids, fewer jobs for manual labor in general. Even though our food and energy industries relied more heavily on corn products like high fructose corn syrup, or corn ethanol. With subsidies.

[Aimless]

I wouldn't be heartbroken if tomato-production were outsourced, or if these parts of American agribusiness just vanished into thin air. It's just crappy tomatoes after all. But the wages are only part of the picture. There's crappy wages and then there is abuse. If we take the example of the first one to make the news, consumers ultimately paid his wages with their tomato-money, it's just that he never got to see much of it and was treated like property to boot. Most of these workers now get a [barely] livable wage, although by all accounts some of them remain slaves. I reckon most are okay with taking the crappy wages, but the abuse and outright slavery? Nah, I don't know if we can class those as being freely chosen (or gladly offered by consumers who thought they were just rewarding innovative capitalists).


Curious though to see that labor unions still have some old-school work to do in the modern day US, and nice to see that even associations of relatively powerless individuals have the power to occasionally make their bosses stop being assholes.

[Aimless]

DailyKos is not a trustworthy site.

The Daily Kos isn't my source, I just grabbed the first descriptive links I could find. The link in my second post provides a more detailed account.

However, this is a major issue. It's mostly entirely the product of:

1) The US having a broken immigration system.

2) The US having a relatively unsecured southern border.

3) The US having a failed state on its semi-unsecured southern border.

It's a ripe situation to exploit people in terrible ways. This is a big country, and it's hard to spot these things once people are "inside", which is why we need to do a much better job of stopping this from even starting.

I've always wondered about this sort of thing... I mean, judging from previous discussions, the most effective way to go about this would be to address those aspects of the demand side that encourage and enable things like eg. traficking, slavery, abuse, beheading Mexican twitterers etc. But how do you tackle the insatiable appetite for Florida tomatoes, for example?

For the record, according to the interview, Florida is a shitty place to grow tomatoes. By all rights there shouldn't be a huge tomato industry in Florida.

Do most Americans even know that their prized Wal-Mart tomatoes were picked by slaves? Or have they not yet realised that, while most illegal immigrants are parasitic scum, some may in fact be slaves??

[GGT]

Do most Americans even know that their prized Wal-Mart tomatoes were picked by slaves? Or have they not yet realised that, while most illegal immigrants are parasitic scum, some may in fact be slaves??

Whole tomatoes have to be stickered with country of origin. We can know if they're Organic (grown without pesticides or herbicides), field or hothouse, domestic or imported. Canned tomatoes, and purees don't have to state the same things. Many of our tomatoe products fall into "other" categories, like catsup/ketchup, marinades, flavorings, or sauces.

[Aimless]

Whole tomatoes have to be stickered with country of origin. We can know if they're Organic (grown without pesticides or herbicides), field or hothouse, domestic or imported.

Exactly, so there isn't really a "no slavery" sticker is there

Canned tomatoes, and purees don't have to state the same things. Many of our tomatoe products fall into "other" categories, like catsup/ketchup, marinades, flavorings, or sauces.

They're less of a problem, as they can be machine-picked, right? Most of those come from California, a much better place altogether

[CitizenCain]

Except having a large demand for these services means that either you won't be able to get them when you need them or that "half your shit" will turn into "two thirds of your shit".

Or, put another way, the reason I hope to die shooting.

The mob can get all my ammo back, and pry the rest of my possessions from my cold, dead hands. And would be well advised to mind the tripwires and such.

I've always wondered about this sort of thing... I mean, judging from previous discussions, the most effective way to go about this would be to address those aspects of the demand side that encourage and enable things like eg. traficking, slavery, abuse, beheading Mexican twitterers etc. But how do you tackle the insatiable appetite for Florida tomatoes, for example?

Making them a schedule 1 substance, obviously. But since the problem isn't tomatoes, per-se, and is actually the money to be made in selling them, clearly, we ought to tackle the root of the problem and ban money instead.

Do most Americans even know that their prized Wal-Mart tomatoes were picked by slaves? Or have they not yet realised that, while most illegal immigrants are parasitic scum, some may in fact be slaves??

No one gives a fuck about illegals in this country anyway, so even if they did know, most people wouldn't care, and secondly, people look at the price tag above the tomato bin, and don't generally do exhaustive amounts of research on every 69 cent purchase.

Anyway, remind us again, how tomatoes (or agriculture products in general) are any different from any other product in this regard, like clothes or electronics or anything else that's probably made by some Asian kid who's forced to work in a sweatshop for 12 cents a day...

[Aimless]

Because they're more-or-less useless and unnecessary and in the case of Florida tomatoes apparently don't even taste good. People need clothes that remain affordable despite requiring increasingly large amounts of fabric, while tech makes some people productive. Basically it comes down to what you say: people [think they] want cheap crappy tomatoes, don't care about immigrants, and possibly want to reward and celebrate eg. Wal-Mart for being the quintessential American entrepeneur (a word that for some reason doesn't exist in my Firefox dictionart ). Still, would be fun if Obama or O'Reilly went on national TV and asked the American public if they like slavery in the US more than they like 70c tomatoes

[CitizenCain]

Because they're more-or-less useless and unnecessary and in the case of Florida tomatoes apparently don't even taste good.

Also true of iPhones and clothing, FYI. At least tomatoes don't scar your throat on the way down and require invasive surgery to remove from your small intestine.

Still, would be fun if Obama or O'Reilly went on national TV and asked the American public if they like slavery in the US more than they like 70c tomatoes

You're not really naive enough to think that would actually make a difference... are you?

[Aimless]

No but it would be immensely satisfying

[GGT]

Or, put another way, the reason I hope to die shooting.

The mob can get all my ammo back, and pry the rest of my possessions from my cold, dead hands. And would be well advised to mind the tripwires and such.

Quoting an elder actor who supports the NRA doesn't get you tag-along credits.

Making them a schedule 1 substance, obviously. But since the problem isn't tomatoes, per-se, and is actually the money to be made in selling them, clearly, we ought to tackle the root of the problem and ban money instead.

Only a federal agency can tag a substance a schedule 1 narcotic that requires professional prescription and dispensing. As requested by professional physicians and pharmacists. You're mixing your metaphors in a really bad way, Cain.

No one gives a fuck about illegals in this country anyway, so even if they did know, most people wouldn't care, and secondly, people look at the price tag above the tomato bin, and don't generally do exhaustive amounts of research on every 69 cent purchase.

Anyway, remind us again, how tomatoes (or agriculture products in general) are any different from any other product in this regard, like clothes or electronics or anything else that's probably made by some Asian kid who's forced to work in a sweatshop for 12 cents a day...

It probably didn't mean much until the middle classes started shrinking, and finding they'd become the working poor. Or after local/independent shops began to close and lay off their workers, and entire communities found themselves shopping at big box stores with deep discounts. And those discounts mattered quite a lot of newly unemployed people.

....Still, would be fun if Obama or O'Reilly went on national TV and asked the American public if they like slavery in the US more than they like 70c tomatoes

Or a Republican candidate like Santorum debating Obama. Maybe what we need right now is that kind of public debate, where the extreme conservative right is contrasted against the "lib'rul" left....and deciding which is more moderate or centrist.

[Dreadnaught]

Quite frankly, I think the only real "solution" is to have a large chunk of the agricultural industry disappear. If these farmers can't turn a profit without paying their workers a few dollars an hour (or nothing, as is the case here), then why insist on keeping this industry inside the US? There are some large agri-farms that would survive even if labor costs went up, though it would also lead to higher food prices. But ultimately, those farms that rely on people harvesting their land should move to the third world where they belong (i.e. where they can turn a profit). Of course, the same people who complain about illegal immigrants and their mistreatment oppose this form of "off-shoring".

The disparity in income between the US and Mexico is so high that we'd need to implement incredibly harsh immigration policies (e.g. shoot to kill) and enforce them without exception in order to deter most would-be laborers from Mexico. It's not a viable solution either economically or ethically.

Just to be clear, I don't support shutting down the border. That's not what I'm saying at all. And I don't mind if the pay is very low, it's certainly attracting enough people willing to give it a shot.

It's the abuse we hear about that's a product of our borked immigration/border situation. To me, fixing that implies fixing it in a way that doesn't close the border, but secures it in a way that people can cross legitimately without needing to hire coyotes/slave harvesters.

[Hazir]

Recently I posted something in the 'groove' thread about a Polish woman who used to work in Holland. Green house job, hard work, low pay, that kind of thing. The employer provided a flat for her and her husband to live in. Live was not so bad. Untill it took a turn for the worse.

She had the audacity of getting breast cancer, which her employer didn't like AT ALL. She underwent a mastectomy, then radiation therapy. During the radiation therapy the employer decided that he'd been paying for her sick leave long enough and told her to get back to work (that would be a full 6 weeks after the mastectomy). He also made clear though means of another Polish underling that 'they better do what they were told and that otherwise their boss knew their address. She went back to work, cleaning buildings that were refurbished. When she really couldn't work any longer she told her boss. Who told her to sign some paper (notice) and then told her she had 15 minutes to 'get the fuck out of his house'.

Not exactly slavery, but still a pretty bad story.

[Loki]

It's the abuse we hear about that's a product of our borked immigration/border situation. To me, fixing that implies fixing it in a way that doesn't close the border, but secures it in a way that people can cross legitimately without needing to hire coyotes/slave harvesters.

That's empty rhetoric, no better than the one about ending our dependence on foreign energy. There is no "fix". As long as Mexico is a craphole and we have a free market system, we will get millions of illegal Mexican immigrants. Now I suppose you can make all of them legal, but then you'll get tens of millions of Mexican immigrants. There are only two ways you can solve this problem: make it prohibitively costly for Mexican migrants to enter this country or sharply minimize the benefit of them being here. No one is going to take either step, so pretending that a quick fix is around the corner isn't particular honest.

[LittleFuzzy]

It's incredible that crappy tomatoes can motivate such cruelty. It's true what they say about progress I suppose

That sort of criminal behavior will show up in other fields too. Some fairly unskilled industrial work, other areas of agriculture. . . oh and some local narcotic harvesting.