Employmentweb_low

policies and interventions
could establish the conditions, including oHs, under which work is performed. For example, in australia, laws integrating labour (pay, hours)
and oHs standards and workers’ compensation entitlements and entailing mechanisms for transmitting legal responsibilities to the head
of the supply chain (including mandatory codes) have been introduced in order to protect (mainly immigrant) home-based clothing workers,
as well as truck drivers. also, a statutory licensing system covering labour supply agencies (gang masters) in agriculture, horticulture, and
food processing has been introduced in the United Kingdom (James, Johnstone, Quinlan, & Walters, 2007). Finally, there are also proposals
to extend regulatory intervention in contractual mechanisms in the international sphere, including poor countries (Macklem, 2002).
references
James, p., Johnstone, r., Quinlan, M., & Walters, d. (2007). regulating supply chains for safety and health. Industrial Law
Journal, 36(2), 163-187.
Johnstone, r., Quinlan, M., & Mayhew, c. (2001). outsourcing risk the regulation of oHs where contractors are employed.
Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal, 22(2-3), 351-393.
loos, F., & le deaut, J. (2002). Rapport fait au nom de la commission d’enquete sur la surete des installations industrielles et des centres de
recherche et sur la proection de personnes et de l’environnment en cas d’accident industriel majeur. paris: assemblee nationale.
Macklem, p. (2002). labour law beyond borders. Journal of International Economic Law, 5(3), 605-645.
Quinlan, M., Mayhew, c., & bohle, p. (2001). the global expansion of precarious employment, work disorganisation, and
consequences for occupational health: a review of recent research. International Journal of Health Services, 31(2), 335-414.
case study 87. Poor workers in US agriculture. - the national economic and social rights initiative
Modern day slavery around the world is ongoing and systematic in some sectors of the economy within the United
states. in Florida, significant numbers of workers are in slavery and/or forced labour at any given moment in the agriculture
industry. indeed, in the last decade, there have been six successful federal government criminal prosecutions in Florida for
forced labour and slavery resulting in up to fifteen-year prison terms and the freeing of over 1,000 workers. in addition, there
are ongoing cases under investigation by the department of Justice.
Forced labour and slavery are driven by the economic and legal context in which farmworkers find themselves. these violations are
enabled by discriminatory and inadequate labour laws, failure to ensure basic economic and social rights and increasingly concentrated
buying power, which has driven down wages and fuelled inhumane working conditions. in no other sectors in the Us, outside of
agriculture and domestic work, do employers have as much power over their employees. Farmworkers have long been excluded from
the country’s most basic labour laws, including the national labor relations act (nlra), which means farmworkers can be legally fired
for collective bargaining efforts. Farmworkers are also excluded from portions of the Fair labor standards act (Flsa), which regulates
issues like minimum wage and overtime pay. there are also restrictions on immigration visas for farmworkers, which enable abuse. in
particular, the H2-a visa increasingly used by farmworkers to work legally in the Us. has no employer portability; in other words, it is valid
only for the existing employer. this hampers workers from protecting themselves against abuses, leaving them no options other than
illegal work or returning home to where there may be no viable work and where they may not be able to pay off the sizeable debt
accumulated to come to the Us. all of these components working together clearly enable human rights violations.
Farmworkers are among the poorest, if not the poorest, labourers in the United states economy. When legal, they earn roughly
$7,500 per year, which is far below the national poverty line. Undocumented workers often earn less than half of that. Wages are kept
low through illegal withholding of pay, enabled by inadequately enforced federal and state wage protection regulations. Farmworkers
also generally earn less than the legal minimum wage because they are not compensated for time spent travelling between fields and
harvests, time waiting for fields to dry before picking, and time waiting for crops to ripen. in addition, farmworkers' wages have not
changed significantly in over twenty-five years. adjusted for inflation, this is a 65 per cent drop in income in the last quarter decade.
Farmworkers rarely receive overtime pay. besides not being adequately compensated for their time, workers often do not have
a choice as to whether they want to work overtime. they do not generally receive benefits such as health insurance, sick leave,
vacation pay, and pensions. the number of farmworkers who do have access to either benefits from their employers or contributionbased
and needs-based services has never been large and has been declining. Farmworkers’ lack of access to health insurance
means they lack information about medical services, confront long travel times to medical facilities from their isolated labour
camps, face language barriers and often encounter hostility from employers reluctant to report workplace injuries or illnesses. the
failure to ensure farmworkers basic economic and social rights is also reflected in the substandard housing they inhabit. Workers
often have no telephones, no cars, and neither heat nor air conditioning in the shacks and trailers they inhabit. overcrowding is both
common and severe. twelve to fifteen people, or roughly three families, may live in a single-wide trailer, hanging sheets as dividing
walls. Far from being cheap, a trailer such as the one just described can rent for up to $1,200 per month. shacks can rent for
upwards of $200 a week, a square-footage rate approaching Manhattan’s, one of the highest rent districts in the Us.
Source
the national economic and social rights initiative. (2005). Modern day slavery in US Agriculture: Legal failure and corporate complicity.
retrieved February 27, 2009, from http://www.nesri.org/fact_sheets_pubs/Modern day slavery in U.s. agriculture.pdf
339