Today in Labor History: May 12
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raid the Agriprocessors, Inc. slaughterhouse and meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa, arresting nearly 400 immigrant workers. Some 300 are convicted on document fraud charges. The raid was the largest ever until that date. Several employees and lower and mid-level managers were convicted on various charges, but not the owner—although he later was jailed for bank fraud and related crimes – 2008
(Chicken Feathers and Garlic Skin: Diary of a Chinese Garment Factory Girl on Saipan: Many workers around the globe leave all that’s familiar in an effort to find employment. Newspaper and magazine reports tell us about how miserable life is for garment workers in Third World sweatshops. But we’ve read very little in the workers’ own words, and that’s what this fascinating book offers. In Chicken Feathers and Garlic Skin, 25-year-old Chun Yu Wang tells of her life as a Chinese emigrant to Saipan, searching for a better life 2,000 miles from her home.)
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Cool Labor Site: New Deal Legacy
Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the New Deal within weeks of his election in 1933 as a way to help Americans make it through The Great Depression, in large part by creating millions of public jobs, many of them in the arts and land conservation. http://newdeallegacy.org/