Investigate Midwest (https://investigatemidwest.org/category/labor/)
“We've had to go back to our customers and request additional compensation to be able to make sure our drivers were getting paid enough,” an owner of a trucking company said.
At least 65 farmworkers have died from heat-related causes since 2002, according to an Investigate Midwest analysis of OSHA data. The Biden administration has promised to address the dangers of extreme heat in workplaces.
At times, the H-2A visa program that brings non-citizen farmworkers to the U.S. has been used to facilitate human trafficking, experts and activisits said. But the number of people trafficked through the program appears to have increased.
Farms across the Midwest are struggling to hire domestic employees. In Illinois, the number of foreign agricultural workers has increased more than 250% in the past five years.
While complaints increased, overall inspections dramatically decreased, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General.
A few states with large agricultural populations have, so far, left farmworkers out of their COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
Advocates have said safety measures need to be enforceable in order to protect workers. Without the feds, some states have stepped in and done so.
Some states have enforced rules to prevent COVID-19's spread among farmworkers, but the federal government hasn't done so, leaving many workers unprotected, advocates said.
The pounds of chicken available to consumers on a per capita basis has increased more than 500 percent since 1909, according to USDA data.
Tens of thousands of agricultural workers have been denied wages by their employers — a violation of labor laws — over the past two decades, according to Department of Labor data.