Immigrants say working at Kansas ranch was like slavery

[demmiblue]

Source: AP

SYRACUSE, Kan. (AP) — Immigrants working on a remote Kansas ranch toil long days in a type of servitude to work off loans from the company for the cost of smuggling them into the country, according to five people who worked there.

There are no holidays, health insurance benefits or overtime pay at Fullmer Cattle Co., which raises calves for dairies in four states. The immigrants must buy their own safety gear such as goggles.

One worker spent eight months cleaning out calf pens, laying down cement and doing other construction work. Esteban Cornejo, a Mexican citizen who is in the U.S. illegally, left Kansas in November after paying off debt, which he figures was nearly $7,000.

The pay stub Cornejo shared with The Associated Press shows he worked 182.5 hours at $10 an hour over two weeks — an average of 15 hours a day with Sundays off. His pay was $1,828.34 before taxes. Also deducted was a $1,300 “cash advance repayment” that he said was a company loan for bringing him into the country.

Read more: https://apnews.com/357ea0c95693461cb55a8dfbc915f849?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=APCentralRegion

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1. actual slaves, their descendants, and ghosts of actual slaves all say "hold my beer".

indentured servitude would be closer, in any event.

what is described here sounds horrible, and this situation should certainly be fixed; but there are aspects of genuine slavery that are not even alleged here.

[pbmus]

2. For sure...

Slavery Isn’t a Thing of the Past
Nicholas Kristof
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
November 6, 2013
The movie “12 Years a Slave” is receiving rapturous reviews for depicting the antebellum South less as a gauzy land of elegant plantations than as the raw backdrop of monstrous brutality.

It’s terrific that, in the 21st century, we can squarely face 19th-century slavery. But let’s also acknowledge the modern versions of slavery in the world around us — and, yes, right here at home.

The United States is home to about 60,000 people who can fairly be called modern versions of slaves, according to a new Global Slavery Index released last month by the Walk Free Foundation, which fights human trafficking. These modern slaves aren’t sold in chains in public auctions, so it’s not exactly the same as 19th-century slavery. Those counted today include illegal immigrants forced to work without pay under threat of violence and teenage girls coerced to sell sex and hand all the money to their pimps.

There are, of course, many more ambiguities today than in the 1850s about how to count slaves, but the slavery index finds almost 30 million people enduring modern slavery. More are in India than in any other country, and in some countries, such as Mauritania, children are still born into slavery.

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3. of course.

indeed, various forms of involuntary labor continue to exist, and the cynic in me says it probably always will somewhere in the world.

safe to say that what they're describing would be a violation of the 13th amendment.

but "slavery", certainly in this country, generally is taken to refer to more severe forms of involuntary labor. in fact, slavery is taken to mean something far more broad, in which involuntary labor is merely one component of the horrible treatment of another human being.

[Bengus81]

4. Well,well....Trump loving Republican ranch owner paying slave wages and voting TWICE

Now running basically a slave operation way,way out in Western Kansas where there's nothing but miles and mile of miles and miles.

That POS owner also PROVES what I said about KKKobach and his BS "illegal voter" in Kansas crusade. He claims there are 10-18,000 voting illegally but has found about five or so--and this DOUBLE voting Republican is one of them.

Well,well...................

[alarimer]

5. Well I suppose technically it's indentured servitude, but it's still deplorable.

No matter what, no human should be treated this way. Human trafficking is what we should call it.

[LanternWaste]

6. More accurately (and more technically), it's debt peonage, itself outlawed in 1876.

More accurately (and more technically), it's “debt peonage,” itself outlawed in 1876, rather than indentured servitude.