Walmart, a huge company here in America, has been obviously confronted with an issue in which many Americans only thought was present outside of our country. Illegal and unfair working conditions right here in the US are apparantly not uncommon, according to this article. CJ's seafood, in Coastal Lousiana, has been uncovered by a advocacy group for foreign guest workers, along with an unreported 12 other Wal-Mart suppliers. The article describes working conditions consisting of foreign workers being forced to work 16 to 24 hour shifts up to 80 hours per week, peeling crawfish until their hands are numb. Walmart and Federal Agencies are investigating these coumpanies. However, the companies complain is that new rules protecting workers rights were supposed to have been effective in April. Business owners sued the Department of Labor for pressing the rules without supplying the funding to enforce them. This is all a downhill slope effect of large companies (such as Wal-Mart) slashing costs to consumers, which forces suppliers to cut payments to workers, and abuse them to work just as hard.
We typically think of poor working conditions in China and other foreign countries with bad reputations of labor and production standards. Interestingly enough, although the problem exists right here in America, it is still a issue of foreign people. The workers in CJ's seafood are described as legal immigrants who have come to America for jobs under the H-2B program, and employers are doing things such as black mailing and confiscating immigration documents to get what they need out of the workers. This is not only a racial issue, but also a subject of humane treatment inside the workplace.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/09/opinion/forced-labor-on-american-shores.html?_r=0
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