Migrant farmworkers toiling for some of the biggest agribusiness corporations live in unsafe and even illegal labor camps, a new public database reveals.
Hired by third-party labor recruiters to work for billion dollar brands like Monsanto and DuPont, vulnerable migrant farmworkers are often crowded into barns, trailers, and motels where bed bug infestations run rampant and access to running water is scarce.
It’s ludicrous for the world’s richest agribusinesses to subjugate workers in housing riddled with health and safety violations. With $15 billion and $25 billion in sales from 2015 alone, Monsanto and DuPont have the responsibility -- and the means -- to make sure their workers live in dignified, safe housing.
Tell Monsanto and DuPont to cut ties with labor recruiters that house migrant workers in unsafe, illegal labor camps.
Migrant worker housing is so bad that when state inspectors visit, they find health and safety violations 60 percent of the time. From black mold to pest infestations to overflowing sewage, conditions have been described by farmworkers as like “barns for animals”.
To make matters worse, farmworkers exposed all day to pesticides like glyphosate are at even greater risk of sickness because they lack access to adequate laundry and shower facilities.
We’ve come together to oppose the worst offenses of agribusinesses like Monsanto before, like when we introduced a shareholder proposal to bring independent oversight to Monsanto’s CEO and Chairman of the Board. Now, we need to raise our voices to ensure that Monsanto and DuPont ensure safe and dignified living conditions for some of their most vulnerable workers.
Tell Monsanto and DuPont to ensure migrant workers’ housing conditions don’t violate basic health and safety standards.
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In These Times. 20 September 2016.