The lettuce-producing Taylor Farms was linked to the widespread use of prison labor before its involvement in a cyclospora outbreak.

It turns out that Taylor Farms, the agricultural company widely believed to be behind the cyclospora outbreak currently raging throughout the US, is also heavily involved in modern-day forced labor.

In reporting from 2023 that was resurfaced this week on social media, the publication Prison Legal News revealed that Taylor Farms was contracting labor from the Arizona Department of Correction, Rehabilitation, and Reentry for the low, low price of just $4.75 an hour — far below the cost of a non-incarcerated worker the federal minimum wage. (And to be clear, that’s not the hourly wage paid to the inmate, which is capped at $1.50 in Arizona.)

  • inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world
    381·
    20 hours ago

    Taylor Farms was contracting labor from the Arizona Department of Correction, Rehabilitation, and Reentry for the low, low price of just $4.75 an hour — far below the cost of a non-incarcerated worker the federal minimum wage. (And to be clear, that’s not the hourly wage paid to the inmate, which is capped at $1.50 in Arizona.)

    The state of Arizona makes more than twice the money controlling prisoners than the people doing the actual labor.

    ACAB. All the way up and down the chain. It’s all slave catching shit.

  • meco03211@lemmy.world
    42·
    23 hours ago

    And these indentured servants that get this news now know what it takes to shed some light on this bullshit. Just fuck things up in ways that will go public.

      • edible_funk@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        11 hours ago

        Wait, do people actually think that’s what’s caused all this? That was a racist fox news conspiracy theory when it went around a few years back.

        • Wildmimic@anarchist.nexusEnglish
          6·
          11 hours ago

          There are many diseases that can get transferred specifically by blood and feces. Those situations happen if you abuse your workers by overworking and underpaying them, while neglecting even their most basic needs like a damn toilet.

          Doesn’t change the fact that fox only spread that info to rile people up without explaining the surrounding circumstances.

          • edible_funk@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            11 hours ago

            Yeah but that’s not gonna cause outbreaks at this level. This is clearly a systemic failure regarding food safety, sanitation, and general oversight throughout Taylor Farms operations. This isn’t because somebody shat in a field. Like, that’s not what caused anything, it’s just fox news racism.

            • Wildmimic@anarchist.nexusEnglish
              1·
              10 hours ago

              The parasite in question spreads through excrements. But i agree that to reach this scale, there must be multiple issues; a single sick worker can’t cause this if there are protocols in place to prevent this. Maybe there was an large-scale outbreak in their workforce that everyone ignored. Maybe machines processing the produce weren’t cleaned after an incident. In the end, someone there was very sick, and management ignored it.