Immokalee, Florida: Slavery

Immokalee, Florida: Modern-day slavery is rife in the United States.

By Dale C. Knight


Lucas Benitez, a 27-year-old former tomato picker from Mexico with silver teeth (the signature of Central American dentistry), proclaims, “If you want true change, it won’t come from Washington, or from the lawyers but from the people in the field.” He is currently one of 7-elected representatives of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). “If you win a case or get a judgment, the problems of slavery, of abuses, still remain,” he says, “If you change people’s consciousness, the people themselves take care of it.” When implored of Washington’s role, he shrugged, “Who cares what happens to a bunch of pelagatos – a bunch of nobodies?”

Benitez is not far off since Florida, Texas and New York State lead the nation in usage of illegal labor with little repercussion. The significance of this revelation is that former Texas Governor – now President of the United States - George W. Bush, his brother, current Florida Governor, Jeb Bush and New York Senator and likely Democratic 2008 Presidential Candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton have visibly done nothing to subdue these atrocities and implicit enslavements whether it be physical, fear-based or virtual.

In south Florida, federal prosecutions have indicated that hundreds of farm workers were victims of human trafficking and a forced prostitution ring identified as many as 40-young woman and girls apprehended in Mexico were brought forcibly to Florida. According to the Center for the Advancement of Human Rights at Florida State University, “domestic servitude” is ubiquitous.

The centers report emphasized that not all of the victims of human trafficking are illegal immigrants. Many enter the United States legally but because of their poverty or inability to speak English they’re exploited. “Some of them are Americans,” says Robin Thompson, director of the FSU research project, pointing to homeless, addicted or runaways as potential victims.

According to The Washington Times, a worker in Mexico who labors 8-hours per day can expect to make just $120 per month – this is little more than $4-per-day. Thus, many whom arrive willingly do-so with the hope of earning up to $8-dollars per hour in order to provide for their families back home. Instead, the mass-majority end up earning, in Immokalee, FL., for instance and according to the BBC, “$3.50-an-hour which is considerably less than the minimum wage of $5.15.”

This may not seem so terribly bad ignoring that the work itself is arduous – moving 125 35-lb. Bushels over 12-hours, 7-days-a-week which is equivalent to just 14 tons, however, according to The New Yorker, “workers often borrow money to travel north from loan sharks back home at interest rates as high as twenty-five percent per month and if they’re deported the loan is foreclosed.” This can be overwhelming, “Frequently, homes are put up as collateral, so deportation can be a financial calamity for an entire family.”

Many Immokalee farm workers merely break even, “renting old shacks and mobile homes, many rusting and mildew-stained, for upward of 2-hundred dollars a week, a square-foot-rate approaching that of Manhattan. (Heat and phone service not provided.) It isn’t unusual for twelve workers to share a trailer.” John Bowe, upon visiting Immokalee, witnessed something reminiscent of a work camp, a decapitated black dog, left to rot on the median strip across from a new Walgreen’s. In 2001, a county sheriff’s deputy was sentenced to fourteen years in prison for dealing crack and shaking down local drug dealers.

Then there are those who work without a choice. They face beatings and threats of reprisals against their families. Martinez-Cervantes, told a courtroom in absence for he feared reprisal that he was accused of helping workers escape a farm. Before he could reply, he said he felt the butt of a pistol crash down on his skull. A second blow cut a wide gash across his mouth. “I lost consciousness after they pistol-whipped me,” he said.

Kevin Moran, a spokesman for the Florida Farm Bureau Federation, a private nongovernmental organization that advocates for Florida’s farmers, acknowledged that many of his group’s 150,000 members rely heavily on documented and undocumented migrant workers during harvests. “We’d be in sorry shape without them,” Morgan said. He disputed the suggestion that trafficking abuses are widespread in Florida and said illegal immigrants were the government’s responsibility stating, “Farmers are not document experts but we have to hire people for the harvest. We can’t tell if people are legal or illegal."

While some farms may be unaware of the human-trafficking problem, the numbers are hard to ignore, that is, 53-people have been convicted for human trafficking since Congress made smuggling a federal felony in 2000. According to Al Moskowitz, chief of the Justice Department’s civil rights criminal division, “Many are afraid to talk to authorities for fear of being deported. The victims tend to naturally distrust law enforcement.” He adds, “Traffickers play on those fears by telling them (victims) they’re the ones who are going to get in trouble.”

To suffice that popular claim, In January of 2003, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft signed a regulation that allows trafficking victims to cooperate with investigations to remain in the United States for up to 3-years. After that, they may be eligible to seek citizenship. Prosecutors have hoped that this recent regulation would encourage more migrant workers to come forward, however, as Martinez-Cervantes believes, “It will take more than a rubber stamp on a visa to put an end to human trafficking.” He adds, “We have to fight for ourselves and if we don’t do it, who will?”

This may not be surprising but according to CIW there is nary an interaction between farm workers and the large corporate growers let alone the larger corporations that they supply. Indeed, the only “contract” that does exist is with the labor contractors, or crew leaders, who hire at the morning “shape up” based on potential output since they’re compensated by the total weight of what their crew pick. This leaves would-be stragglers financially distraught.

This change that has been sought for years is at the hands of the corporations since the government has refused to get involved by simply doing nothing or at least not enough. CIW recently was awarded the 2005 International Business Ethics Network (BENNY) Award in the name of the farm worker community of Immokalee in which they spearheaded a successful boycott against Taco Bell.

According to the Palm Beach Post, 5-years-ago, the coalition began its persuasion of the chain of about 7,000 restaurants to accept a deal that would improve the lives of farm workers. Taco Bell had bought huge quantities of Florida tomatoes and if they would agree to pay one penny more for each pound and let the penny pass to the pickers, the workers could double their salaries and earn a living wage. The plan’s added cost to restaurant customers would be undetectable – about a quarter-cent per taco. But, the difference for the pickers – who earn about 40 cents for every 32-pound bucket picked and average about $7,500-a-year – would be life changing.

As in other sectors of the food economy, the production and distribution of South Florida’s tomato crop has become increasingly concentrated. A handful of private firms like Six L’s Packing Company, Gargiulo, Inc., and Pacific Tomato Growers supply millions of pounds of tomatoes, either directly or indirectly, to supermarkets and corporations such as Taco Bell, Wendy’s, Burger King, McDonald’s and Carnival Cruise Lines.

Ownership and distribution is even more tightly controlled in the citrus industry. Lykes Brothers is a billion dollar conglomerate with holdings in insurance, real estate and cattle as well as citrus. Larger still, is Consolidated Citrus, which owns fifty-five thousand acres in Florida alone. A majority of the state’s crop, in the form of either fruit, juice, or concentrate, goes to three final buyers: Cargill, a fifty-one-billion-dollar commodities giant and one of the largest privately owned companies in the world, with operations in fifty-nine countries; Tropicana, which is owned by PepsiCo; and Minute Maid, owned by Coca-Cola.

These companies are quick to point out that they do not own the groves or harvest the fruit themselves. They merely employ supervisors who test for quality and sugar content, coordinate prices on world commodities markets, and, ultimately, control the harvest.

In the past two decades, according to the United States Department of Labor, farm receipts from fruit and vegetable sales have nearly doubled. Between 1989 and 1998, however, wages paid to farm workers declined, dropping from $6.89 to $6.18-per-hour.

The daily conditions of an Immokalee farm worker consist of a day that begins at 4 a.m., in which they must wait for busses in the Central Parking lot - usually around 3-hours – which will take them to the fields. They will work for 14-hours continuously and will not immediately begin if there is dew on the plants. This time is usually unpaid. In the citrus groves one will work, sun-up to sundown, and only accumulate about $15 over one weeks time. One is usually paid based on quota which means if weather conditions hinder one’s ability to pick then that is a loss for the day and a significant dent in one’s livelihood.

They return home to a trailer chock full of fellow workers, stained mattresses devoid of sheets, no heat or air-conditioning and a general lack of electricity. Temperatures rise to over 100 degrees, and fall sometimes below freezing. The majority of workers cannot afford a car so they must walk or purchase a ride. Phone booths are everywhere and much time is spent calling home to their respective families, of which, they’re unable to bring to the States because they simply cannot manage to pay for it.

They’re trapped, modern-day slaves and underpaid workers dehumanized by their employers – captor’s incognito – and as Guadalupe, a Mexican, his lips trembling as he thinks of his family and his broken dreams and his inability to look into the future, “You have to laugh to forget and not cry.”



Data compiled:

Associated Press (AP)
Cable News Network (CNN)
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
Coalition Of Immokalee Workers (CIW)
Center For The Advancement Of Human Rights At Florida State University.
St. Petersburg Times (Online).
The Palm Beach Post.
The Washington Times.
The New Yorker.

Note from compiler: Material is up-to-date.