capital | yvonnegraphy

Food Workers—Wages and Race

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Mariano Lucas Domingo traveled north from his home in Guatemala in search of work to support his sick parent. He landed in Immokalee, Florida, the tomato capital of the United States, where he found work harvesting tomatoes. He expected to earn about $200 a week. Then Lucas met two brothers who offered him room and board at their family house, in exchange for a cut of his pay. This didn’t seem like a bad deal to Lucas who had no family or friends nearby, and also because the brothers offered to extend credit even when work was sparse.

Lucas spent the next two-and-a-half years living as a captive with other workers in a truck with no water or electricity.1 The workers were forced to relieve themselves in a corner of the truck and wash with a garden hose in the backyard. The brothers locked them in the truck every night, forced them to work even when they were sick or tired, and took away their paychecks. Lucas and his colleagues finally escaped from the truck one night by punching a hole through the roof.2 The two brothers were subsequently arrested and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
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Will 2012 Become Labor’s Moment of Political Truth?

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via Colorlines.com

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, well, Richard Trumka is no fool. The president of the largest labor federation in the country—the AFL-CIO boasts of 11 million members—had scathing words for Democrats and President Obama at a speech last week at the National Press Club.

“If leaders aren’t blocking the wrecking ball and advancing working families’ interests, working people will not support them. This is where our focus will be—now, in 2012, and beyond,” Trumka said.
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The Physical and Emotional Costs of Long-Term Unemployment

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via Colorlines.com

CNN and the New York Times report new research that shows that long-term unemployment doesn’t just impact the jobless in the short-term, but has deep implications for the lifelong health and well-being of an individual as well as their children and families. One study by a sociologist at Albany, Kate W. Strully, found that people who lose their jobs are 83 percent more likely to develop stress-induced conditions, such as diabetes, arthritis, or depression.
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