Five Found Guilty of Slavery


(Editor’s Note: The following is guest commentary from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ website.  CIW are affiliates to the National Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign.)
September 2008


"November 20th was a momentous day in Immokalee.”

On November 20th, according to court documents filed last week, three tomato pickers made their way to the Collier County Sheriff’s office after having escaped two days earlier through the ventilation hatch of a box truck where they had been held against their will by their employer. The three men told police of an Immokalee-based tomato harvesting slavery ring in which workers “were beaten and forced to work exclusively for the Navarrete family,” according to an article entitled, “Family accused of enslaving workers at Immokalee camp” in the Naples Daily News (12/7/07).

On that same day, November 20th, Andre Raghu, global managing director with the supply chain monitoring group “Intertek,” told the readers of the Miami Herald that his company’s audits of Florida tomato operations “have found no slave labor.” Mr. Raghu was quoted in the Herald as part of a high-profile press junket organized by Burger King and their new partners in public relations, the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange (FTGE), to counter CIW claims of a human rights crisis in Florida’s tomato fields.

And so, on November 20th, while well-paid executives assured the world that all is well in the Florida’s fields, workers in Immokalee were recounting to Sheriff’s deputies how they had to break out of a locked U-Haul truck to escape from their employers."

The explosion of this case on the scene then helped put the lie to that effort to whitewash farm labor abuse. Its conclusion in guilty pleas yesterday should likewise leave the leaders of the Florida tomato industry with no more room for denial of the urgent need for reform.

We'll close with the words of the CIW's Gerardo Reyes, from a statement issued to the News-Press about the convictions:

"The facts that have been reported in this case are beyond outrageous -- workers being beaten, tied to posts, and chained and locked into trucks to prevent them from leaving their boss. How many more workers have to be held against their will before the food industry steps up to the plate and demands that this never -- ever -- occur again in the produce that ends up on America's tables?"

"What's most frustrating is that there is a solution. As US Senator Bernie Sanders said when he visited Immokale, 'Slavery is the extreme. The norm is a disaster.' If we can improve the norm -- guarantee fair wages and humane conditions for all Florida farmworkers -- then we can eliminate the extreme. And there are now several retail food industry leaders who have agreed to do their part to promote social responsibility in Florida agriculture. Yet the leaders of Florida's tomato industry -- who are holding their annual meeting this week at the Ritz Carlton in Naples -- continue to stand in the way of progress. The FTGE needs to start working with Yum Brands, McDonald's, Burger King, and the other major tomato buyers who want to put an end to exploitation in Florida's fields."
Editorial: Purge U.S. of Shame of Slavery

The successful prosecution of five Immokalee residents on slavery charges is satisfying, but the brutal details of their treatment of farm workers show how warped the agricultural labor system is.

We congratulate Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney Doug Molloy and other anti-slavery crusaders for their work in this case, one of the largest slavery prosecutions in Florida, and perhaps one of the most brutal in the country. We urge him and farmworker advocates to carry on this work against all forms of slavery and human trafficking.

The 17-count indictment settled by guilty pleas Tuesday alleged that ringleaders Cesar Navarrete and Geovanni Navarrete held more than a dozen people in boxes, trucks and shacks for more than two years, chaining and beating them, forcing them to labor in fields in Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina and sinking them in increasing debt.

The Navarretes will likely serve 12 years and be fined between $750,000 and $1 million each. Sentencing is set for December.

This is among six slavery cases the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has helped prosecute, freeing more than 1,000 people. Coalition member Gerardo Reyes asked Tuesday, "How many more workers have to be held against their will before the food industry steps up to the plate and demands that this never - ever - occur again in the produce that ends up on America's tables?"

That will help, but comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to legal residency and citizenship for certain workers, is also necessary to bring this shameful plague to an end.

So long as agriculture relies on illegal labor, a culture of human exploitation and disrespect for the law will prevail, so we can eat slightly cheaper food and certain people can pocket extra profit.

Disrespect for human beings is in the DNA of the current system. Respect demands that we legalize the foreign labor we clearly need to harvest our crops.

We need a mix of guest worker programs, liberalized legal immigration and a path to legal status and earned citizenship for illegal immigrants who are committed to life in this country.