Slavery in the Union
“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. He didn’t talk about dignity in terms of the rise in poverty - 37 million Americans, one in eight citizens now living below the poverty line in the wealthiest nation in the world. 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.”
These farmworkers pick the tomatoes many Americans eat at McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Burger King and other fast food chains. They are paid 45 cents for a 32-pound bucket of tomatoes. It’s grueling work, as Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser noted recently in a New York Times op-ed
: “During a typical day each migrant picks, carries and unloads two tons of tomatoes.” For that two tons the worker can expect about $50, and annual wages of $10,000-$14,000. Wages have been stagnant for more than two decades. Two weeks ago, six people were indicted on slavery charges for beating workers, chaining and locking them inside U-haul trucks, and threatening physical harm if the workers left their jobs. This is far from a rare occurrence, as the Miami Herald wrote, “… farm crew slavery stories and the brutal exploitation of undocumented workers have long since lost their shock value in Florida.”
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) - a community-based worker organization - has “exposed a half-dozen slavery cases” that helped trigger the freeing of more than 1,000 workers, and also advocated for better wages, living conditions, respect from the industry, and an end to indentured servitude. CIW recently scored critical victories in negotiating a penny-per-pound surcharge - so workers would now receive about 77 cents per 32-pound bucket - with McDonald’s and Yum! Brands (owner of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC). The corporations - not the tomato growers - would pay the 40 percent salary increase. Astonishingly, Burger King has refused to go along with the deal (tell Burger King to pony up) - it would cost them less than $300,000 annually and the corporation took in $2.23 billion in revenues in 2007. Not to mention three private equity firms control most of Burger King’s stock, including Goldman Sachs. In 2006 Goldman Sachs’ top 12 execs took home bonuses exceeding $200 million - “more than twice as much money as all of the roughly 10,000 tomato pickers in southern Florida earned that year,” according to Schlosser.) Even more outrageous is the response of the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, representing 90 percent of the state’s growers. The group has said it will fine any member $100,000 for accepting the extra penny per pound for worker wages.
It’s no surprise that Bush has failed to use the bully pulpit to call out slavery and excessive greed in our nation. It’s also no surprise that Sen. Sanders is once again taking a leading role in serving as the conscience of the Senate. Two weeks before the State of the Union address, Sanders, along with Schlosser, went to Immokalee to meet with CIW and witness the working and living conditions firsthand. In letters co-signed by Senators Edward Kennedy, Richard Durbin, and Sherrod Brown, he urged both Burger King and the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange to support the penny-per-pound deal. He’s also working with Kennedy to hold hearings on this issue in the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee chaired by Kennedy. I spoke with the Senator about his experiences down in Immokalee, and why this is such an important issue for our country. If President Bush truly wants to use his final year in office to ensure that all life is treated with dignity, he should head on over to Sen. Sanders office and get involved.
Here, then, is what Senator Sanders shared with me:
“It was really stunning - the likes of which I have never seen in my life. I’ve long been interested in workers issues. But when we talk about the race to the bottom here in the United States I would say that Immokalee, Florida is the bottom. I think those are workers who are more ruthlessly exploited and treated with more contempt than any group of workers that I’ve ever seen and I suspect exist in the US.
What I observed is… I was out at 5:30 in the morning, where tomato pickers from all over the community assemble at several locations, primarily in a large parking lot. School buses come by to pick them up and take them to different growers’ tomato fields. Some are selected and some are not. So, for a start, when you line up at 5:30 in the morning, you don’t know if you’re going to make a nickel during that day. You’re standing there, and someone is pointing, ‘you, you, you… but not you….’ and you can see people dejected, because by 8:30 the buses are out and if you’re not selected you’re not gonna work. So these are desperate people then who have just discovered that that day they’re not gonna earn a penny.
Then you get on the bus and depending on which farm you’re going to it will be longer or shorter, but perhaps you’re going a half hour away…. You’re getting to the field at 6:30 or 7:00 in the morning, and you don’t go to work right away. You’re getting paid piecemeal. The pay is very, very low to begin with, but you’re getting paid piecemeal. You can’t pick until the sun comes out and dries the tomatoes. So we got photographs of workers just hanging around the bus waiting for the tomatoes to dry and that might be an hour, hour and a half. Now it’s not only that this is your time, it is in a sense the contempt that you are so disposable, that we can get you out here just to sit around doing nothing while you’re waiting for the tomatoes to dry….
Then you go out and you’re picking tomatoes and you make on average about 45 cents for a 32 pound bucket of tomatoes - about a penny and a half per pound. That is not a lot of money. My understanding is that at the end of the year these are workers that will make 10,000, 12,000, 14,000 a year, working a very, very difficult job, under a very hot sun. After you do this job for a number of years your knees go out because you’re bending over all of the time. Obviously there are no benefits that go with the job. I went over to the health center to see what was going on…. I met with these workers, and talked to them - they just don’t go to the doctor. Some of them are able to take their children to the doctor, they have no real access to healthcare.
In terms of their living conditions, I visited trailers… and these trailers were old, decrepit trailers where you had 8 to 10 people living in the trailer. In the morning to get to the bathroom, sink, or stove, you gotta wait in line to do it, because there are a lot of people in front of you. And they’re paying in some cases $50 per person, per week! You got that? So, the landlord who owns this old trailer is getting $2000 a month. And what someone there told me - I don’t know if it’s true or not - they buy these old trailers for about $2000 so they get their money back at the end of one month.
The days I was there - it was raining, when it rains you don’t pick. The next day it rained mid-day so you had half a day of picking. Then, an amazing coincidence - when I was there the US Attorney announced an indictment on slavery charges. So we have seen now - I don’t remember exactly the number - of different indictments that have been made against different individuals for slavery… which means that some of these people are being held in captivity, in some cases in chains. I think in the last instances, a couple of workers literally forcibly busted out of truck in which they were held against their will. So, the norm there is a disaster, and the extreme is slavery. And this is taking place in the United States of America in the year 2008.
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 US, 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.
Now the good news is there is a very wonderful group called the Coalition of Immokalee Workers who have managed to put pressure on large buyers of tomatoes, i.e., fast food chains like Yum! which owns Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, and McDonald’s, to pay an additional penny a pound. And if you understand that if someone is making a penny and a half a pound, and they get an additional penny, that’s a very significant increase. Burger King has been resistant, and there is now pressure being put on Burger King and other companies. And I would hope that as Americans, we all do everything we can, to demand that companies pay these workers a living wage and end this horrendous exploitation.
The Tomato Growers Exchange seems to be playing a very reactionary role. They are claiming that this additional penny a pound is in violation of antitrust law… I myself think that the issue - if you look at the amount of money that is being asked to be contributed by McDonald’s, Burger King, and so forth - it is nothing. Very, very small number. I don’t think the money is the issue. I think truthfully, in my gut, the issue is a question of a balance of power. It is a feeling right now that you have workers who are absolutely helpless, the feeling that if they achieve some victories, they may have more confidence in themselves and more of an ability to stand up for their rights.
So, imagine, just put yourself in their place. You don’t know whether you’re gonna work or not, there are no guarantees that you are - I may pick you, I may not - if you come there, if I pick you, you’re gonna wait around for an hour and a half. What does that do to you as a human being? But these are desperate people who need the work, so to my mind it was an eye-opening experience, and I hope that as a nation we can end that kind of exploitation.
The very good news - what was positive about my visit down there was - we did a press conference, and the reporters went to Burger King, and Burger King came forth with what appeared to be a conciliatory response. Now whether it is just talk or not, we can’t tell. But we want to pursue that. And certainly what we released when I was down there was a letter that was written by Senator Kennedy, Sen. Durbin, Sen. Brown and myself. And Sen. Kennedy has been very clear in telling me that he is prepared to do hearings on this issue. And I think that’s terribly important, not only in exposing the exploitation, but trying to explain to the American people how slavery can take place in the United States in the year 2008.”
Katrina vanden Heuvel is editor of The Nation.
© 2008 The Nation
“We must ensure that all life is treated with the dignity it deserves,” President Bush declared
I would say he that he has a very low regard for all life. imp
Whether chained and beaten or simply controlled by the heavy hand of freemarket capitalism…slaves are slaves. Under the control of the Washington Concensus and starved for the sunlight of freedom by the long shadow of Free Trade, American workers have all become slaves to their subsistance jobs. As billions of corporate dollars flow freely across world borders and millions of American jobs are farmed out to the poorest countries where slavery has always been the norm, US workers are being fenced in, denied effective unions, spied upon, and told by a government in denial how lucky they are to be enjoying life, liberty, happiness, truth, justice and the American Way. And don’t talk too loud or often about your discontent if you don’t want to be labeled an economic terrorist and shipped off to a blacksite in shackles and without access to habeas corpus.
I don’t pick tomatoes. I’m a high-class slave. Corpirate slave to the corpiration I work for and the government who wants to tell me how to spend my paycheck.
I make fun of my psuedo corpirate enslavement but OMFG these people of Immokalee are truly enslaved!
To be honest Slavery would provide for better conditions. The slave would have value, it would be in the owners interest to provide health care. The free worker is free to starve, free to go without healthcare, free to keep his trap shut if he/she wants to keep working at whatever mcjob they can get. But hey, unions are commie fronts and the corporation has our best interest at heart.
Sounds like nothing has changed since The Grapes of Wrath. Sadly most people don’t pick tomatoes so they aren’t concerned about the lives of those who do. But as Katrina vanden Heuvel pointed out, it creates a culture of worker abuse that affects all levels of society. Employers have the upper hand and the people are afraid of their government. And like a large dog whose owner is not asserting authority, the government and employers are becoming more and more abusive.
kathyodat
I don’t work and I’m not a slave. They don’t have magic mind control powers. If the system is broken or worse yet working as intended then simply stop participating. Give up your energy wasting huge houses cars and 80 wk jobs. DO what you want to do and be poor it really isn’t that bad. I wear nearly decade old clothing that wasn’t name brand when new. I eat cheap food and live in a 500 sqft apartment. I could easily do with less. I do what I want when I want to. The only thing they can do to me is bust for drug possesion but I’m sure if your that afraid of savery then don’t get high and you’re off scot free.
And don’t give me that struggle to survive bull shit. For one 8 hour day of begging I could buy enough Ramen for months. And lots of people around me sleep under bridges everyday. They’re largely mentally ill or drug addicts and still they’re magically stay alive. The cage is a psychological cage if you don’t believe you have no choice then suddenly you have choice.
Grow your own tomatoes anywhere you can and then eat them yourself. Better yet, eat them with your family and with friends. Fresh from the garden.
I haven’t eaten anything from Burger King for years - After I had a whopper, I always felt sick to my stomach. I vow never to eat at Burger King ever again and I will do all I can to encourage others to likewise avoid Burger King and fast food in general. The best way to defeat the selfish few who depend on consumers to purchase their ill-gotten wares, is to STOP buying. Buy local instead. Burger King, McDonalds and all the other national burger chains need to go by the wayside. They are not sustainable and they hurt us all in so many ways.
Furthermore, I would like to encourage local farmers to hire these folks who need work and to treat them with some dignity. It won’t cost much and in the long run the quality of work will improve. It will be a win-win situation.
Peace,
Ken
I worked in an upacale spa and all the massage practitioners had to work as private contractors(p.c.’s). The company was not required to give any benefits to these sometimes long time employees ( I mean p.c.’s). In addition to No worker’s rights or benefits we were subjected to a mindset of: ‘if you dont like it not only can you go elsewhere, but there are hundreds of hungry others just waiting for your cush-ass job- you could be replaced in moments of fired at will for any reason whatsoever’. Also as independents we were treated like juvenile delinquents with all our “freedom” and sh*!t
Oh yeah, it is all coming back to me now.. I worked seven days a week and got very ill. So ill in fact I couldnt work at all. So Knowing I was very ill and had no savings because every penny had gone to moving into a really nice apartment so could live near work and not drive over a big mountain every day to get to work. Something I shudder at today and I did that for years. I applied for food stamps and was turned down because I had earned too much the month before(I worked extra to get the first, last and deposit to move). That was the month (my luck) the Clinton Congress stopped food stamps to people like me. I was given a list of soup kitchens/pantries. I went from middle class, hard working to destitute, ill and a month away from any services (You had to prove you had no income for one month to get the Emergency Food Stamps!)
My point being that the author is right on!
This attitude towards people, workers is a trickle down one and very deliberate method on the part of the profiteers.
The United States of America was built on the backs of slaves and will continues to exploit slavery as the United States of Israel.
“He (Bush) didn’t talk about dignity in terms of ravaged pensions, working longer hours for lower wages, and the loss of healthcare and other benefits. He didn’t talk about dignity in terms of the rise in poverty - 37 million Americans, one in eight citizens now living below the poverty line in the wealthiest nation in the world. And he certainly didn’t talk about dignity when it comes to migrant workers in Immokalee, Florida….”
Here’s what Bush said: “We must ensure that all life is treated with the dignity it deserves,” …
Bush has made certain that “all life” got what they deserve, “according to Bush”.
1) People who got their pension plans stolen by the Wall Street wizards of “globalized risk” investments must have deserved to have them stolen.
2) People who don’t have health insurance deserve not to have it because they couldn’t identify where the risk lay when then signed on to work for a company whose goal was profit at the expense of human dignity.
3) People who are poor have no dignity and shouldn’t be given the opportunity to rise above the level of poverty where they can command a little dignity.
4) Dignity for migrant workers? Are you kidding? They were brought here to set an example for millions of jobless Americans who need to get a close-up view of what they can expect from the future of the “New American Nightmare”, complements of globalist greed and their elitist lust for power.
The South was built on slavery, an institution that accounted for more than fifty percent of that region’s capital. The Emancipation Proclamation did not simply free the slaves; it wiped out half the South’s wealth and they’ve been trying to reinstate the despicable practice of human bondage that made them rich ever since.
the only line that needs to be added to make purvis ames statement complete is:
Nobody can win the white house without carrying the south.
I have for some time felt my stomach turn at the sight of such signs as “God bless America”.
I wish I could leave. Anybody who stays is guilty.
Nietzsche…Please stay and fight…Sanity needs all the help it can get and Goddamn what America has become.
I believe the article is called “Slavery in the Union”.
What exactly does Katrina vanden Heuvel know about enslavement, except what she’s read in a book, or seen in a magazine?
She’s a gatekeeper for the left. She loses money to social security, or she has to give up some coin to the Unemployment Insurance scam every payday, and it’s no big deal.
Get something straight Ms. vanden Heuval, NOT ALLOWING ME TO WORK UNLESS I PAY TRIBUTE TO CAESAR IS SLAVERY!
But no, KEEP listening to her. I bet she has some GREAT ideas about what THEY can do with OUR money!
Gatekeeper indeed.
Oh spare me from more drival form a mush headed liberal. These characters are worse than conservatives because they actually think they are saying something when it is just their mouth dribbling slop.
I feel so bad after reading this article and the comments, that I can’t write anything of any value.
I would like to grab any politician at any level of government (city to federal) or any filthy rich person like Bill Gates’ or Oprah and make them live with me or anyone else just barley making it by for a week. I don’t think they could handle it. Oh I know Oprah visits poor undeveloped areas all the time but she doesn’t live there.
I think everybody should have to live in poverty for the first four years after they graduate public schools. I know quit a few young people who would completely break down if they had no support from mama, daddy or grand parents. It definitely would be good for them to go through this.
None of us are free until the tomato pickers are free.
http://www.ryanhartman.wordpress.com
Anyone who is barred from having economic or biological self-determination is a slave.
NOTHING TRANSFERS WEALTH TO THE RICHFILTH LIKE SLAVE LABOR, PRISON LABOR, CHILD LABOR, & SWEATSHOP LABOR. NOTHING.
The first fortunes here, North & South, came from slavery and the trade. The pre-bellum profits from Cotton were greater than all the mfg goods of the North combined. Slave labor built Congress & the White House.
Richfilth have never lost the taste for slave labor. That is why the monsters bribed our Democrat leadership (they didn’t have to bribe the Repugs they were already on the Board) to eliminate Chapter 7. And of course, now that they have taken THEIR country back, Edmund Burke and Attila the Hun are running our country.
Bye Bye Ms. American Pie…
Pieces of 8.
“…had to work as private contractors(p.c.’s). The company was not required to give any benefits to these sometimes long time employees ( I mean p.c.’s). In addition to No worker’s rights or benefits we were subjected to a mindset of: ‘if you dont like it…”
I got caught in that wave too. The Eighties sucked for some of US. The Rise of the MBAs. 5 quarters to profit, screw everybody else.
It was probably already in play, but when Reagan fired the Air Traffic Controllers as one of his first acts in office, Employers were turned loose on their employees. Any sort of worker protections you had were gutted and pay and benefits were stripmined. Labor of any sort is considered evil and low, there is no honor or reward in work in modern America. And this used to be a country that was proud of it’s work ethic, with pockets stuffed by a paycheck. What was the Rove quote about his kids will never pick crops?
The entire concept of “guest workers” is the perfect cover , and begs for, these and other inhuman abuses.
The very existence of work visas also diminishes all of our livelihoods.
If an employer can’t work exclusively with fully free and voting citizens, as well as living wages, then they should find a different business.