[Fwd: Slave Labour in the Land of the Free-USSA]

[Marcel van Dalen]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

En, iedereen (althans bijna iedereen) een goed 2008!
Marcèl van Dalen

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: owner-d66 at nic.surfnet.nl [mailto:owner-d66 at nic.surfnet.nl] Namens
dirkie
Verzonden: maandag 31 december 2007 21:45
Aan: Antid Oto; D66 lijst
Onderwerp: Re: [Fwd: Slave Labour in the Land of the Free-USSA]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Yo,

Dit is wel een heel erg kras verhaal maar uiteraard niet onmogelijk.

Er zijn 12.000.000 illegale (e)migranten in de US, bijna zonder uitzondering
komen ze van Mexico of verder uit het zuiden. 
Deze "illegale Polen" worden heel vaak "misbruikt" en zeker onderbetaald. 

Net als in Holland kijken de meeste mensen een beetje ambigieus tegen het
(e)migranten probleem aan. Ze weten hier dat de economie niet zonder de
illegalen
kan draaien, en (dikwijls diezelfde mensen)willen ze er onmiddelijk
uitgooien. 
En dan zijn er ook nog de gristenen die het een zeggen en het andere
bedoelen.
Het lijkt holland wel, alhoewel de plaggenhutten opgeheven zijn begrijp ik
:)

Dirkie
You got only one life to live. 
Abuse it!


--- Antid Oto <aorta at home.nl> wrote:

> REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl
> 
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Slave Labour in the Land of the Free-USSA
> Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 18:12:44 -0800 (PST)
> From: Vngelis <meberry68 at hotmail.com>
> Organization: http://groups.google.com
> Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
> 
> When I used the word slave labour for the maquila zones and
> specifically for migrant labour the apst globalists like Walters said
> I was pushing it too far. Now the story has gone mainstream he will
> adopt it as his own.
> 
> Slave labour that shames America
> Migrant workers chained beaten and forced into debt, exposing the
> human cost of producing cheap food
> By Leonard Doyle in Immokalee, Floride
> Published: 19 December 2007
> 
> Three Florida fruit-pickers, held captive and brutalised by their
> employer for more than a year, finally broke free of their bonds by
> punching their way through the ventilator hatch of the van in which
> they were imprisoned. Once outside, they dashed for freedom.
> 
> When they found sanctuary one recent Sunday morning, all bore the
> marks of heavy beatings to the head and body. One of the pickers had a
> nasty, untreated knife wound on his arm. Police would learn later that
> another man had his hands chained behind his back every night to
> prevent him escaping, leaving his wrists swollen.
> 
> The migrants were not only forced to work in sub-human conditions but
> mistreated and forced into debt. They were locked up at night and had
> to pay for sub-standard food. If they took a shower with a garden hose
> or bucket, it cost them $5.
> 
> Their story of slavery and abuse in the fruit fields of sub-tropical
> Florida threatens to lift the lid on some appalling human rights
> abuses in America today.
> 
> Between December and May, Florida produces virtually the entire US
> crop of field-grown fresh tomatoes. Fruit picked here in the winter
> months ends up on the shelves of supermarkets and is also served in
> the country's top restaurants and in tens of thousands of fast-food
> outlets.
> 
> But conditions in the state's fruit-picking industry range from
> straightforward exploitation to forced labour. Tens of thousands of
> men, women and children - excluded from the protection of America's
> employment laws and banned from unionising - work their fingers to the
> bone for rates of pay which have hardly budged in 30 years.
> 
> Until now, even appeals from the former president Jimmy Carter to help
> raise the wages of fruit-pickers have gone unheeded. However, with
> Florida looming as a key battleground during the the next presidential
> election, there is hope that their cause will be raised by the
> Democratic candidates Barack Obama and John Edwards.
> 
> Fruit-pickers, who typically earn about $200 (£100) a week, are part
> of an unregulated system designed to keep food prices low and the
> plates of America's overweight families piled high. The migrants,
> largely Hispanic and with many of them from Mexico, are the last
> wretched link in a long chain of exploitation and abuse. They are paid
> 45 cents (22p) for every 32-pound bucket of tomatoes collected. A
> worker has to pick nearly two-and-a-half tons of tomatoes - a near
> impossibility - in order to reach minimum wage. So bad are their
> working and living conditions that the US Department of Labour, which
> is not known for its sympathy to the underdog, has called it "a labour
> force in considerable distress".
> 
> A week after the escapees managed to emerge from the van in which they
> had been locked up for the night, police discovered that a forced
> labour operation was supplying fruit-pickers to local growers. Court
> papers describe how migrant workers were forced into debt and beaten
> into going to work on farms in Florida, as well as in North and South
> Carolina. Detectives found another 11 men who were being kept against
> their will in the grounds of a Florida house shaded by palm trees. The
> bungalow stood abandoned this week, a Cadillac in the driveway
> alongside a black and chrome pick-up truck with a cowboy hat on the
> dashboard. The entire operation was being run by the Navarettes, a
> family well known in the area.
> 
> Also near by was the removals van from which Mariano Lucas, one of the
> first to escape, punched his way through a ventilation hatch to
> freedom in the early hours of 18 November. With him were Jose
> Velasquez, who had bruises on his face and ribs and a cut forearm, and
> Jose Hari. The men told police they had to relieve themselves inside
> the van. Other migrant workers were kept in other vehicles and sheds
> scattered around the garden.
> 
> Enslaved by the Navarettes for more than a year, the men had been
> working in blisteringly hot conditions, sometimes for seven days a
> week. Despite their hard work, they were mired in debt because of the
> punitive charges imposed by their employer, who is being held on minor
> charges while a grand jury investigates his alleged involvement in
> human trafficking.
> 
> The men had to pay to live in the back of vans and for food. Their
> entire pay cheques went to the Navarettes and they were still in debt.
> They slept in decrepit sheds and vehicles in a yard littered with
> rubbish. When one man did not want to go to work because he was sick,
> he was allegedly pushed and kicked by the Navarettes. "They physically
> loaded him in the van and made him go to work that day. Cesar,
> Geovanni and Martin Navarette beat him up and as a result he was
> bleeding in his mouth," a grand jury was told.
> 
> The complaint reveals that the men were forced to pay rent of $20
> (£10) a week to sleep in a locked furniture van where they had no
> option but to urinate and defecate in a corner. They had to pay $50 a
> week for meals - mostly rice and beans with meat perhaps twice a week
> if they were lucky. The fruit-pickers' caravans, which they share with
> up to 15 other men, rent for $2,400 a month - more per square foot
> than a New York apartment - and are less than 10 minutes' walk from
> the hiring fair where the men show up before sunrise. At least half
> those who come looking for work are not taken on.
> 
> Florida has a long history of exploiting migrant workers. Farm
> labourers have no protection under US law and can be fired at will.
> Conditions have barely changed since 1960 when the journalist Edward R
> Murrow shocked Americans with Harvest Of Shame, a television broadcast
> about the bleak and underpaid lives of the workers who put food on
> their tables. "We used to own our slaves but now we just rent them,"
> Murrow said, in a phrase that still resonates in Immokalee today.
> 
> For several years, a campaign has been under way to improve the
> workers' conditions. After years of talks, a scheme to pay the tomato
> pickers a penny extra per pound has been signed off by McDonald's, the
> world's biggest restaurant chain, and by Yum!, which owns 35,000
> restaurants including KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. But Burger King,
> which also buys its tomatoes in Immokalee, has so far refused to
> participate, threatening the entire scheme.
> 
> "We see no legal way of paying these workers," said Steve Grover, the
> vice-president of Burger King. He complained that a local human rights
> group, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers "has gone after us because
> we are a known brand". But he added: "At the end of the day, we don't
> employ the farmworkers so how can we pay them?"
> 
> Burger King will not pay the extra penny a pound that the tomato-
> pickers are demanding he said. "If we agreed to the penny per pound,
> Burger King would pay about $250,000 annually, or $100 per worker. How
> does that solve exploitation and poverty?" he asked.
> 
> Burger King is not the only buyer digging in its heels. Whole Foods
> Market, which recently expanded into Britain with a store in London's
> upmarket suburb of Kensington, has been discovered stocking tomatoes
> from one of the most notorious Florida sweatshop producers. Whole
> Foods ignored an appeal by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to pay
> an extra penny a pound for its tomatoes.
> 
> In a statement Whole Foods said it was "committed to supporting and
> promoting economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable
> agriculture" and supports "the right of all workers to be treated
> fairly and humanely."
> 
> The Democratic candidates for the presidency do not often talk about
> exploited migrant workers, but there are hints that Barack Obama will
> visit the Immokalee fruit pickers sometime before Florida's primary
> election on 5 February.
> 
> Jimmy Carter recently joined the campaign to improve the lot of fruit-
> pickers, appealing to Burger King and the growers "to restore the
> dignity of Florida's tomato industry". His appeal fell on deaf ears
> but 100 church groups, including the Catholic bishop of Miami, joined
> him.
> 
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