Bill Maxwell in the Sunday St. Pete Times has a column about the horrors endured by these farm workers. They were held and treated as slaves. Sentences have just been handed down for the ringleaders who did this crime.
Farmworkers enslaved in FloridaThe 17-count indictment alleged that for two years, ringleaders Cesar Navarette and Geovanni Navarette kept more than a dozen men in boxes, shacks and trucks on their property. The workers were chained, beaten and forced to work on farms in North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. Incredibly, the indictment shows that the men were forced to pay rent of $20 a week to sleep in a locked furniture van. They were forced to urinate and defecate in a corner of the vehicle.
To keep the workers obligated to them, the Navarettes devised drug, drink and food schemes to increase and guarantee the men's indebtedness
A federal plea deal was entered, giving the two ringleaders 12 years and fines from $750,000 to $1-million each. Formal sentencing is at the end of the year.
He gives credit to the
Coalition of Immokalee Workers.
From the Coalition link:
"The successful prosecution of five Immokalee residents on slavery charges is satisfying, but the brutal details of their treatment of farm workers show how warped the agricultural labor system is...
This is among six slavery cases the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has helped prosecute, freeing more than 1,000 people. Coalition member Gerardo Reyes asked Tuesday, "How many more workers have to be held against their will before the food industry steps up to the plate and demands that this never - ever - occur again in the produce that ends up on America's tables?"
Maxwell also mentions that Jimmy Carter and Bernie Sanders were involved in bringing the farm bosses involved to justice. He says that Jeb Bush once criticized the Immokalee coalition for its work, and Governor Crist had little to say at all.
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers conducted the initial investigation in this case and six other successfully prosecuted cases that have freed more than 1,000 field hands.
A major shame is that Florida's leading lawmakers, not to mention ordinary citizens, have rarely expressed outage over such abuses, and even fewer have raised a finger on behalf of farmworkers. Former Gov. Jeb Bush and his labor emissary openly criticized the coalition for its work, and Gov. Charlie Crist has yet to show real interest.
Outsiders, such as former President Jimmy Carter, have had to come in and lead the fight. Now U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is the most outspoken elected official in Washington to advocate for the cause of Florida farmworkers. He is a member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Following the conviction of the Navarettes, Sanders said in a prepared statement: "I think most Americans would find it hard to believe that people in our country are pleading guilty to slavery charges in the year 2008, but that is what is going on in the tomato fields of Florida.
Yes, I believe this could go on here in Florida. Our Republicans are too busy
bragging about their attack politics to do anything about injustices in Florida.
Even if they cared.
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