The Dramatic Rise of Farm Labor Contractors Has Led to Rampant Abuses. Here’s Why Regulators Have Failed to Stop Them.
This affects the entire country.
In the summer of 2019, a crew leader tasked with overseeing farm laborers sent them to harvest corn in a field where they weren’t authorized to work — and where there wasn’t adequate protection from the sweltering sun. One of them died of symptoms of heatstroke.
Five months later, a crew leader for another Georgia farm kidnapped and brutally assaulted one of his workers who had escaped.
Two years after that, a third crew leader confined workers to housing surrounded by an electric fence so they couldn’t try to flee.
These and other recently documented abuses were carried out by third-party middlemen, or farm labor contractors, who were hired by farm owners to recruit and supervise foreign workers. Those contractors had found ways to wield power with near impunity over hundreds of workers at a time. Federal prosecutors spent years revealing the scope of the problem in Georgia, in a giant labor-trafficking case that launched in 2016 and is now nearing its conclusion.
The evidence in that case led prosecutors to liken the abuse to a form of modern-day slavery.
But despite prosecutors’ efforts to crack down on the exploitation of workers by labor contractors, there has been little to no movement at the state or federal level to make the changes that can stop it. There are laws and regulations that could curb exploitation, but reports from farmworker advocates and labor experts have shown that enforcement has long been lax. A number of elected officials have pushed for years for the government to do more to ensure workers receive those protections. Some advocates now say the only solution is for the government to require that farm owners cut out the middleman and assume ultimate responsibility for their workers.
Experts told ProPublica there aren’t enough state and federal inspectors to adequately vet whether the contractors are following the rules. Nor is there broad political support to invest more resources to protect foreign workers, who themselves have little incentive for reporting abuse given the fear of retribution.
“Regardless of the administration — even ones that are sympathetic to labor — regulators are handicapped,” said Cesar Escalante, a University of Georgia professor of agricultural and applied economics. “They know what’s happening, but they’re incapable of enforcing the regulations.”
As American farmers continue to rely on the decades-old H-2A visa program to fill the seasonal farmworker jobs, they’ve grown more reliant on contractors to find and oversee those workers. Contractors often are fluent in the languages spoken by workers, familiar with the Mexican towns where they’re plentiful and well-versed in the process of securing their temporary work visas. Many farmers also end up hiring contractors to manage the laborers’ work, pay and housing.
Federal regulators have long known about contractors abusing and exploiting these workers — including stealing their wages, charging them illegal fees, forcing them to live in substandard housing, and even physically and sexually abusing them. Government watchdogs have published reports about those regulators’ failures to do more to prevent abuses in the fields — inaction …
This affects the entire country.
In the summer of 2019, a crew leader tasked with overseeing farm laborers sent them to harvest corn in a field where they weren’t authorized to work — and where there wasn’t adequate protection from the sweltering sun. One of them died of symptoms of heatstroke.
Five months later, a crew leader for another Georgia farm kidnapped and brutally assaulted one of his workers who had escaped.
Two years after that, a third crew leader confined workers to housing surrounded by an electric fence so they couldn’t try to flee.
These and other recently documented abuses were carried out by third-party middlemen, or farm labor contractors, who were hired by farm owners to recruit and supervise foreign workers. Those contractors had found ways to wield power with near impunity over hundreds of workers at a time. Federal prosecutors spent years revealing the scope of the problem in Georgia, in a giant labor-trafficking case that launched in 2016 and is now nearing its conclusion.
The evidence in that case led prosecutors to liken the abuse to a form of modern-day slavery.
But despite prosecutors’ efforts to crack down on the exploitation of workers by labor contractors, there has been little to no movement at the state or federal level to make the changes that can stop it. There are laws and regulations that could curb exploitation, but reports from farmworker advocates and labor experts have shown that enforcement has long been lax. A number of elected officials have pushed for years for the government to do more to ensure workers receive those protections. Some advocates now say the only solution is for the government to require that farm owners cut out the middleman and assume ultimate responsibility for their workers.
Experts told ProPublica there aren’t enough state and federal inspectors to adequately vet whether the contractors are following the rules. Nor is there broad political support to invest more resources to protect foreign workers, who themselves have little incentive for reporting abuse given the fear of retribution.
“Regardless of the administration — even ones that are sympathetic to labor — regulators are handicapped,” said Cesar Escalante, a University of Georgia professor of agricultural and applied economics. “They know what’s happening, but they’re incapable of enforcing the regulations.”
As American farmers continue to rely on the decades-old H-2A visa program to fill the seasonal farmworker jobs, they’ve grown more reliant on contractors to find and oversee those workers. Contractors often are fluent in the languages spoken by workers, familiar with the Mexican towns where they’re plentiful and well-versed in the process of securing their temporary work visas. Many farmers also end up hiring contractors to manage the laborers’ work, pay and housing.
Federal regulators have long known about contractors abusing and exploiting these workers — including stealing their wages, charging them illegal fees, forcing them to live in substandard housing, and even physically and sexually abusing them. Government watchdogs have published reports about those regulators’ failures to do more to prevent abuses in the fields — inaction …
The Dramatic Rise of Farm Labor Contractors Has Led to Rampant Abuses. Here’s Why Regulators Have Failed to Stop Them.
This affects the entire country.
In the summer of 2019, a crew leader tasked with overseeing farm laborers sent them to harvest corn in a field where they weren’t authorized to work — and where there wasn’t adequate protection from the sweltering sun. One of them died of symptoms of heatstroke.
Five months later, a crew leader for another Georgia farm kidnapped and brutally assaulted one of his workers who had escaped.
Two years after that, a third crew leader confined workers to housing surrounded by an electric fence so they couldn’t try to flee.
These and other recently documented abuses were carried out by third-party middlemen, or farm labor contractors, who were hired by farm owners to recruit and supervise foreign workers. Those contractors had found ways to wield power with near impunity over hundreds of workers at a time. Federal prosecutors spent years revealing the scope of the problem in Georgia, in a giant labor-trafficking case that launched in 2016 and is now nearing its conclusion.
The evidence in that case led prosecutors to liken the abuse to a form of modern-day slavery.
But despite prosecutors’ efforts to crack down on the exploitation of workers by labor contractors, there has been little to no movement at the state or federal level to make the changes that can stop it. There are laws and regulations that could curb exploitation, but reports from farmworker advocates and labor experts have shown that enforcement has long been lax. A number of elected officials have pushed for years for the government to do more to ensure workers receive those protections. Some advocates now say the only solution is for the government to require that farm owners cut out the middleman and assume ultimate responsibility for their workers.
Experts told ProPublica there aren’t enough state and federal inspectors to adequately vet whether the contractors are following the rules. Nor is there broad political support to invest more resources to protect foreign workers, who themselves have little incentive for reporting abuse given the fear of retribution.
“Regardless of the administration — even ones that are sympathetic to labor — regulators are handicapped,” said Cesar Escalante, a University of Georgia professor of agricultural and applied economics. “They know what’s happening, but they’re incapable of enforcing the regulations.”
As American farmers continue to rely on the decades-old H-2A visa program to fill the seasonal farmworker jobs, they’ve grown more reliant on contractors to find and oversee those workers. Contractors often are fluent in the languages spoken by workers, familiar with the Mexican towns where they’re plentiful and well-versed in the process of securing their temporary work visas. Many farmers also end up hiring contractors to manage the laborers’ work, pay and housing.
Federal regulators have long known about contractors abusing and exploiting these workers — including stealing their wages, charging them illegal fees, forcing them to live in substandard housing, and even physically and sexually abusing them. Government watchdogs have published reports about those regulators’ failures to do more to prevent abuses in the fields — inaction …
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