Labor-Exploitation

Mississippi raids - largest single-state immigration enforcement

2019-08-07 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 5/10

Largest single-state immigration enforcement action in U.S. history with 680 arrests. Raids proceeded with standard agent identification protocols, contradicting later claims about masked operations being historical practice. Occurred on first day of school, causing significant community disruption, …

ICE agents Detained workers Mississippi employers workplace-raids mass-deportation immigration-enforcement labor-exploitation

Iowa Attorney General Files Criminal Complaint Against Agriprocessors for 9,311 Child Labor Violations, Revealing Systematic Use of Minors as Young as 14 in Dangerous Meatpacking Operations with Harsh Chemicals and Power Equipment

2008-09-09 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 7/10

On September 9, 2008, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller filed a criminal complaint against Agriprocessors Inc. and five company officials for 9,311 child labor law violations that occurred from September 9, 2007, through May 12, 2008, at the company’s Postville meatpacking plant. The magnitude …

Agriprocessors Inc. Abraham Aaron Rubashkin Sholom Rubashkin Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller Iowa Department of Labor labor-exploitation child-labor corporate-impunity regulatory-failure workplace-safety

ICE Conducts Largest Immigration Raid in U.S. History at Postville, Iowa Agriprocessors Plant, Arresting 389 Workers While Management Faces No Criminal Charges Despite Systematic Labor Law Violations and Exploitation

2008-05-12 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

On May 12, 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deployed 900 federal agents to execute the largest worksite enforcement raid in U.S. history at the Agriprocessors kosher slaughterhouse and meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, arresting 389 employees—nearly 20% of the town’s total …

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Department of Homeland Security Agriprocessors Inc. Sholom Rubashkin U.S. Attorney's Office Northern District of Iowa labor-exploitation immigration-enforcement selective-prosecution corporate-impunity institutional-capture

IBP Settles Record OSHA Case for Systematic Injury Underreporting at Dakota City Meatpacking Plant

1988-11-23 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

IBP Inc., the nation’s largest meatpacking company, agrees to pay a $975,000 fine and implement a comprehensive ergonomics program to address rampant repetitive motion injuries at its Dakota City, Nebraska beef plant, settling what OSHA officials call “the worst example of underreporting …

IBP Inc. Occupational Safety and Health Administration United Food and Commercial Workers Congressional investigators labor-exploitation regulatory-capture corporate-corruption workplace-safety meatpacking +1 more

Immigration Reform and Control Act Grants Amnesty to 3 Million, Employer Sanctions Fail

1986-11-06 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 7/10

President Ronald Reagan signs the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), also known as the Simpson-Mazzoli Act, enacting the first federal law to impose sanctions on employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers while simultaneously granting amnesty to approximately 3 million undocumented …

Ronald Reagan Alan Simpson Romano Mazzoli U.S. Congress immigration-policy amnesty employer-sanctions labor-exploitation regulatory-failure

Port Chicago Disaster and Black Sailors Mutiny Conviction

1944-07-17 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

On July 17, 1944, two transport ships loading ammunition at Port Chicago Naval Magazine in California explode, killing 320 men instantly, including 202 African American enlisted men who comprised the entire loading workforce. Three weeks later, 258 surviving Black sailors refuse to return to loading …

U.S. Navy Thurgood Marshall NAACP Port Chicago 50 Eleanor Roosevelt racial-discrimination military-justice civil-rights labor-exploitation institutional-racism

Bracero Program Begins 22-Year Guest Worker Exploitation System

1942-08-04 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

The United States and Mexico sign the Mexican Farm Labor Program agreement, launching the Bracero Program to import temporary agricultural workers during World War II labor shortages. The program, which operates from 1942 to 1964, becomes the largest guest worker program in U.S. history with 4.6 …

U.S. Department of Labor Mexican government Agricultural employers Railroad companies immigration-policy labor-exploitation wage-suppression corporate-capture human-rights

Bracero Program Wage Theft - Wells Fargo Transfers $32 Million That Disappears in Mexico

1942-01-01 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 7/10

Between 1942 and 1949, U.S. employers withhold 10% of bracero workers’ wages—totaling at least $32 million—depositing the funds with Wells Fargo Bank and Union Trust Company of San Francisco for transfer to Mexican savings accounts through the Bank of Mexico and Banco de Credito Agricola. The …

Wells Fargo Bank Bank of Mexico Banco de Credito Agricola Mexican government U.S. agricultural employers wage-theft financial-fraud labor-exploitation corporate-complicity institutional-corruption

Great Mississippi Flood Exposes Racial Labor Exploitation and Plantation System

1927-04-21 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the most destructive river flood in American history, inundates 27,000 square miles across seven states and displaces approximately 700,000 people, disproportionately affecting African Americans in the Mississippi Delta. The disaster response, coordinated by …

Herbert Hoover LeRoy Percy Red Cross National Guard racism labor-exploitation disaster-capitalism institutional-racism federal-policy

First Enslaved Africans Arrive in Virginia, Beginning Atlantic Slave Trade in British North America

1619-08-20 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 9/10

The English privateer ship White Lion arrives at Point Comfort in Hampton, Virginia in late August carrying “twenty and odd” captive Africans originally from modern-day Angola. According to a letter by colony secretary John Rolfe, Governor Sir George Yeardley and head merchant Abraham …

Virginia Colony Sir George Yeardley Abraham Peirsey White Lion privateers Enslaved Angolans slavery institutional-corruption atlantic-slave-trade colonial-economy labor-exploitation