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From FirstCoastNews.com, Jessika Lewis, 27 April 2012. HASTINGS, Fla. — A First Coast potato grower is in hot water, accused of labor trafficking. Florida Legal Services and Farmworker Justice filed a federal lawsuit against Bulls-Hit Ranch and Farm on behalf of two farm workers who said they worked at the Hastings ranch from 2009-2010. The … Continue reading
From HawaiiReporter, “After Oahu Farm Workers Fall Ill, State Inspectors Look Into Workers’ Safety, Food Security” by by Jim Dooley and Malia Zimmerman, 16 Dec 2011. The Hawaii state Department of Agriculture will inspect a Kahuku farm where undocumented workers from Laos said they were sickened by exposure to toxic pesticides. “Our enforcement field inspector has … Continue reading
From YumaSun.com, Cesar Neyoy, Bajo el Sol, 10 Dec 2011. SAN LUIS, Ariz. — Mexicans seeking agricultural jobs in the Yuma area and elsewhere in the United States under the H-2A guest worker program often fall victim to unscrupulous job recruiters, according to the head of a nonprofit that wants to curtail the abuses. The … Continue reading
From MiamiHerald.com, Christina Veiga, 10 Nov 2011. The federal government says the Homestead Housing authority heaped benefits on employees while making a shambles of the units they managed. Having the Homestead Housing Authority as a landlord can be a nasty proposition: Its federally subsidized dwellings for farmworkers feature rusted bathtubs, broken cabinets, peeling paint and … Continue reading
From CrossCut.com, Eric Scigliano, 26 Oct 2011. The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sues a series of Northwest employers for letting foremen harass and assault immigrant workers. Civil rights attorneys say abused farm and janitorial workers are just starting to come forward. The rapes began the week the woman started working at Willamette Tree Wholesale in … Continue reading
From HawaiiReporter.com, Malia Zimmerman, 26 Oct 2011. U.S. District Judge David Ezra dismissed a complaint today filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on April 20, 2011, against six Hawaii farms, saying the government agency that is charged with prohibiting employment discrimination has not been specific enough in its allegations. He gave the agency’s Los … Continue reading
From PeoplesWorld.org, Mark Gruenberg, 21 Oct 2011. RALEIGH, N.C. – Fed up with years of terrible conditions in North Carolina fields, and a decade of neglect by that state’s pro-business labor department, a group of farmworkers there took their case to the federal government. And the U.S. Labor Department, which in August cited tobacco growers … Continue reading
From PoliticsOfPoverty.OxfamAmerica.org, Irit Tamir, senior advocacy and collaborations advisor, 27 Sept 2011. Heat-related deaths in the field. Child labor. Wage theft. And decrepit housing. You might think that I was talking about conditions in a developing country, but actually this is the picture of our own agriculture system here in the United States. A report released last … Continue reading
From KJOnline.com, Kennebec Journal, Ann S. Kim, 21 Sept 2011. Longtime employee: Workers treated as ‘virtual slaves’ at Maine egg operations PORTLAND, ME — A longtime employee of Jack DeCoster alleges in a federal lawsuit that Mexican-American workers at DeCoster’s Maine egg operations were treated as “virtual slaves,” valued only for their willingness to perform dangerous … Continue reading
From ScienceBlogs.com, The Pump Handle, Elizabeth Grossman, 8 Aug 2011. While the rest of the country has been experiencing an epic heat wave, in the Pacific Northwest where I live, thus far the summer has been unusually cool. One consequence of the cool weather is a slow-to-appear local tomato crop, made evident to consumers by … Continue reading
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