The Liberal Phoenix

By Ryan McLellan

"And let the riot be the rhyme of the unheard."
-Rage Against the Machine, Calm Like a Bomb

When you see the flashy images portrayed by American fast-food chains - of which I'll be focusing on Taco Bell for this article - you don't usually think about sweatshop tactics being used in our own country. But the reality of the situation is just that, my friends. According to Oxfam America, there are roughly two million people working the fields for huge corporations that are denied a living wage, the right to organize, the right to overtime pay, and are subjected to horrible working conditions day after day (www.oxfamamerica.org). Mostly migrant workers, these people are living in absolute poverty, with half of them making less than $7,500 a year (Oxfam). Combined with the extremely low pay, the workers must then deal with horrible working conditions, which are considered to be some of the worst in the American work force. Farm workers are subjected to pesticide poisoning and deal with dangerous transportation to work in unsafe, overcrowded vehicles that the farm owners provide.

There has been a campaign launched by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) that is responding to migrant workers being literally enslaved by corporations in states such as Florida, Texas, and California. The CIW website tells of "slavery rings preying on hundreds of farm workers. In such situations, captive workers are held against their will by their employers through threats and, all too often, the actual use of violence -- including beatings, shootings, and pistol-whippings (www.ciw-online.org)." There are numerous examples of this enslavement on the website, all of which will turn your stomach, and I urge you to read them since I have only 600 words for this column.

The majority of these exploited workers are young Latino males, and the vast majorities of all the workers are foreign born with little or no education. According to Oxfam, women also work the fields, but most recently have been moved into packing facilities. The Department of Labor says that roughly 50 percent of the workers are less than 29 years old, and 6 percent between the ages of 14 and 17. The reason for this is because many migrant families "depend on the contribution of their children's labor for the families' survival (www.oxfamamerica.org)." Major food-service corporations, namely Taco Bell, rely on the exploitation of workers to increase profits, and have done little or nothing to improve the conditions of workers' environments. When you take a bite of your taco, chalupa, or quesadilla, you are munching on tomatoes that were picked by a slave. That person had to pick literally a TON (that's 2,000 pounds, my friends) of tomatoes just to get $50 dollars for the day. If you are able to hold that down, I think I'll throw up for the both of us.

Anyone trying to throw that "Hey, it's their choice" crap at me will be immediately placed on my list of Cold-Hearted Bastards, and won't see their name removed, ever. Ever since we were kids, we've been fed the lines over and over again...Everyone is welcome, anyone can come here and make a living, all it takes is hard work and determination, the American Dream is alive and well - Excrement. Bush touted his relaxed border policies as a welcome to anyone who wanted to come here and work hard to become a productive member of society. In reality, it's all nothing more than an invitation to corporations to exploit, plunder, and steal everything they can, just as they've always done. And oh, how the profits roll in. Check out the links, get active, and make a change. I'll be writing more about this is in coming weeks, and attempting to organize boycotts, protests, etc...So stay tuned...Rise!