Next: why would they put up with these conditions? — frank

In some cases it's old fashioned slavery, but not state condoned, so the enslavers are subject to prosecution.

I say it isn't condoned, but since little effort is made to inspect farms and meat packing facilities to make sure the labor isn't being harmed, it's at least a low priority.

Legislation to protect slave labor from abuse existed in America before the USA was created. As London began asserting its authority in the previously anarchic English Colonies, it laid down the first labor laws in America.

So what's gone wrong that the worst kind of labor practices go unnoticed until someone gets around to prosecuting the transporters?

Per the ACLU:

" Migrant workers pay the price when the U.S. lags in international standards. For example, under the U.S. guestworker program, foreign guestworkers (or temporary workers) are left at the mercy of employers who can exploit, isolate and abuse them. Guestworkers often arrive to the U.S. deep in debt after paying exorbitant amounts of money to recruiters who promise them job opportunities. With inadequate governmental oversight of labor abuses in the guestworker program, it is only after they arrive in the United States that these workers discover that they have no way to escape an abusive situation because, under the terms of the guestworker program, they are unable to lawfully transfer their visas from one employer to another.

"Another group of very vulnerable migrant workers are domestic and agricultural workers, who are excluded from federal legislation that provides basic protections like the right to a minimum wage, overtime pay, freedom of association, and health and safety guarantees while at work. These exemptions can be traced back to New Deal legislation passed in the 1930s, when the growers' lobby and other moneyed interests pressured Southern senators to exempt the then largely African-American worker populations of farm workers and domestic workers from these basic workplace protections. Because of this racially biased “compromise,” workers in these professions today – who largely include migrants from Central/South America, South Asia, Africa and the Caribbean – continue to be unprotected."

So Latinos in America today are victimized by Jim Crow era loopholes in labor laws.

But after a righteous Civil Rights Movement, why hasn't this problem been addressed by a nation that prides itself on its human rights stance?

But after a righteous Civil Rights Movement, why hasn't this problem been addressed by a nation that prides itself on its human rights stance? — frank

I'll give my two cents worth.

The Civil Rights Movement was driven in part by national security concerns in the context of the Cold War. There was international pressure on the US to clean up its act wrt segregation in the South (much of it from France). The US responded to this pressure because its fairly monstrous appearance (regarding lynching, for instance) was driving neutral areas of the world toward the USSR and China.

There is no international pressure on the US at this point, and no reason for the last superpower to take note, even if there was.

This is a case study in the benefits of balanced power in the world. A lone superpower has no conscience, no one to hold up a mirror and say, "Look!!"

But my explanation for why the US doesn't take the problem more seriously doesn't explain why exactly the same problem exists in the EU.

Migrants are enslaved in the same way: recruiters trick them into accepting transport to labor positions, and then their freedom is taken away and they're threatened to keep them quiet.

The Fra has these suggestions for measures the EU could take to reduce these crimes:

"EU Member States should require employment
and recruitment agencies and their subcontractors to avoid fraudulent or deceptive recruitment. This should apply to agencies based and operating in the EU, to their branch offices located in third countries and to those agencies based abroad and providing workers to EU Member States. To achieve this, EU
Member States should put in place:

• registration, licensing and, in particular, certification systems for agencies operating in this sector;
• clear liability rules when employment and recruitment agencies subcontract part of their activities to other agencies;
• a list of licensed temporary and recruitment agencies to EU embassies in the countries of
origin of migrant workers;
• dissuasive penalties for non-compliance with
existing legal standards;
• an effective and well-funded monitoring
mechanism to oversee the activities of em-
ployment and recruitment agencies, in coop-
eration with trade unions and relevant human
rights institutions and civil society. This should
focus, in particular, on unlawful or deceptive
practices by employment and recruitment
agencies, such as:
- collecting of recruitment fees and other
charges from workers, which contravenes
Article 6 (3) of the Directive on Temporary
Agency Work (2008/104/EC);
- replacing the worker’s contract originally
signed prior to travelling for the purposes
of obtaining the residence permit with
a  less favourable contract once the third-
country national starts working;
- confiscating the worker’s identity or travel
documents;
- using psychological and physical threats to
prevent migrant workers from complaining
of abuse. Activities of monitoring bodies should prioritise, but not be limited to, the employment sectors where there is evidence of recruitment agencies being more often used, namely domestic and agricultural workers.

"EU Member States are encouraged to sign bilateral agreements with third countries of origin of migrant workers, to limit the need for the services of recruitment agencies.
In line with Article 5 (1) of the Directive on Temporary Agency Work (2008/104/EC) establishing the principle of equal treatment and equal pay between agency workers and the regular workforce, EU Member States should make sure that workers employed by temporary agencies enjoy equal basic employment and working conditions.

" Preventing online recruitment
Some victims found work through the internet, and they were deceived because working conditions turned out to be different from those advertised. In some areas of serious organised crime, Europol supports Member States with intelligence about suspicious websites. An enhanced use of the capabilities Europol has could help Member States to take measures against persons running deceptive recruitment sites, particularly when there is a suspicion of trafficking in human beings.

"FRA opinion 2
Member States’ authorities could draw upon the
support of Europol to detect the internet sites that traffickers and exploitative employers use.
EU Member States should discuss with social
networking sites the implementation of safety
features in relation to job offers, encourage website owners to report suspicious advertisements to police, and introduce independent monitoring of internet safety in relation to online recruitment. In this respect, closer cooperation with internet service
providers and social media should be established."

So how do we explain the severe exploitation of labor in the EU?

Starting at the bottom, the worse victims of exploitation are hidden victims, like undocumented migrant workers. — frank

Sovereign nations have a duty to control their borders. Unchecked population flows across borders have consequences for both the illegal immigrants and citizens, which is why nations do not allow unregulated immigration.

Yes, illegal immigrants are subject to exploitation. Their exploitation is beneficial to businesses who are happy to have low paid workers who are good employees (they won't organize, file a lot of complaints, etc.). Because low wages here are still higher than where they came from (if there is even employment) the immigrants still come out ahead. There are significant cash transfers back to origin families and communities.

A sub-basement wage group lowers wages for poorly paid citizens who are also exploited. (Of course, exploiting labor is the name of the capitalist system. Exploitation is that without which there is nothing.

I do not doubt that illegal immigrants are seeking escape from what are likely third word shit holes, and I am very much in favor of us assisting those countries, whether the source of illegal immigration is SE Asia, Africa, or Central and South America, and the destinations are the Middle East, Europe, and North America.

So "no" to illegal immigration and "no" to illegal immigrants. "Yes" to international assistance in situ.

At the worst end of the exploited labor spectrum are those who are forced to work, often dangerous work without normal safety measures, live in squalid conditions, receive little or no compensation, and face beatings and rape.

"The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that at least 12.3 million people are victims of forced labor at any given time, 2.4 million of whom toil in forced labor as a result of trafficking. The U.S. Department of State estimates that 14,500 to 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States each year.". - - ACLU.

Per one DOJ effort to quantify it in North Carolina, about 17% of interviewed workers gave details that suggested trafficking and exploitation. Most were undocumented. But since enslaved migrants are threatened to keep quiet, this estimate may be low.

Shouldn't governments work to end this particular kind of exploitation?

Shouldn't governments work to end this particular kind of exploitation? — frank

About 4 years ago, there was almost a border deal: Trump would have gotten $20 billion for border security, and Democrats would have gotten DACA protections. Trump's base got wind of it, and there were howls of protest, so the deal fizzled.

I blame Republicans for being intransigent on the issue of what to do about undocumented people already here, and I blame Democrats for the border crisis. I understand where the Republicans are coming from: xenophobia. I don't understand the Democrat's reluctance to police our own border.

Shouldn't governments work to end this particular kind of exploitation? — frank

Yes they should, certainly.

I consider sex trafficking a different (and much worse) crime than crossing a border illegally.

Human trafficking (ranging from a gross crime to merely the first round of financial exploitation) is again different than sex trafficking. Yes, governments should stamp out human trafficking too.

Traffickers run a conveyor belt to rich countries; it begins in poor countries. Intervention has to be conducted outside of the destination countries, which makes things difficult. How does France or the UK conduct interventions in Nigeria, or the US in El Salvador? (Well, we figured out how to do interventions in El Salvador, Chile, and elsewhere whenever we felt like it.)

The FRA (a European human rights watchdog) says labor suppliers need to be registered and employers punished for using unregistered migrant suppliers.

IOW, Europe needs to start regulating the whole sector. Is that possible? Or would rightists squash that as a threat to profits?

About 4 years ago, there was almost a border deal: Trump would have gotten $20 billion for border security, and Democrats would have gotten DACA protections. Trump's base got wind of it, and there were howls of protest, so the deal fizzled. — RogueAI

So part of it is racism or xenophobia?

Well, capitalist right wingers might be worried about profits, but most conservative or right wing people object to in-migration on cultural grounds. For instance Marine la Pen and others (not just right wingers) want to maintain French secularist traditions, and limit non-Christian religious manifestations in public. The US doesn't have the same version of secularism that France has. We have always been blessed or afflicted with sectarianism up the ying yang. Lots of Americans would probably just as soon Islam would disappear, but we are more familiar with religious pluralism. France, a traditionally Catholic nation (not too many Protestants--ask the Plantagenets) has a more monolithic religious background and a very strong secular culture. It's not contradictory.

So, there are both financial reasons and cultural reasons for wishing to limit immigration. Workers also have financial reasons to object to immigration. Workers willing to work below prevailing wage levels help impoverish native workers who do low skilled work. Take Roofing: It used often to be done by white workers; then it became a reasonably good job for black workers. Now it's work done by immigrant Mexicans and Central Americans, who may or may not be legal. (The music on the crews' boom boxes changed along with the workers--country, then bebop, then latin polkas.)

Meat packing (like at Hormel, Iowa Beef Processing, etc.) used to be good union jobs. In the 1980s the unions were destroyed and soon it became a setting for undocumented workers.

Well, capitalist right wingers might be worried about profits, but most conservative or right wing people object to in-migration on cultural grounds. — Bitter Crank

This makes me wonder how things will be affected as the US becomes a more Latino nation.

A lot of Latinos are very conservative and condemn illegal immigration as much as any neo-Nazi Klan member would. So things might not change.

In the 1980s the unions were destroyed and soon it became a setting for undocumented workers. — Bitter Crank

So it ends up being a way that employers can circumvent all the protections American labor has achieved.

It just seems the inevitable result that if you ban entry to certain people, that if they illegally enter, they're not going to be able to go to law enforcement and complain about their treatment without fear of facing punishment for their illegal entry.

I would expect this problem to exist in any affluent nation that did not have open borders.

Next: why would they put up with these conditions? — frank

It beats other options I guess.

The Civil Rights Movement was driven in part by national security concerns in the context of the Cold War. There was international pressure on the US to clean up its act wrt segregation in the South (much of it from France). The US responded to this pressure because its fairly monstrous appearance (regarding lynching, for instance) was driving neutral areas of the world toward the USSR and China. — frank

The pressure for social change was largely internal. Honestly I'd expect external pressure (especially from the French)to result in stubborn backlash.

The pressure for social change was largely internal. Honestly I'd expect external pressure (especially from the French)to result in stubborn backlash. — Hanover

I was surprised to find out this isn't true. Here's an article about it. You need to have access to jstor.

This makes me wonder how things will be affected as the US becomes a more Latino nation. — frank

That is a good question, and one which was asked by the established population in the past. Those Irish! Those Italians! Those Jews! These unwashed rabble yearning to get here...

Largely what happened is that they assimilated and became the average American. They also changed what American had been earlier. Without the Irish, no corned beef. Without the Italians, no pizza. Without the Jews, no hot bagels and lox. With the Latinos everything is becoming a burrito.

The more contacts with the old country, the slower the acculturation. Latin America is not an ocean away.

The location in their native society from which immigrants come is a factor. A lot of Germans (pre-civil war) were from the German middle class. Later they were poorer laborers and farmers. Most of the Irish were displaced starving poor.

Latin America isn't a homogeneous continent. It is undergoing major changes along with the rest of the world. Previous groups have brought distinct flavors of politics, culture, crime, clothing, and so on. Irish gangs, Italian gangs, white gangs, Puerto Rican gangs, black gangs, latino gangs. Octoberfest, beer, bratwurst, but mercifully, no lederhosen.

Really, the cultural contributions of immigrants is too large to nail down. It's pervasive.

Staid Minnesota has a (relatively) large population of Somalis, SE Asians, and Latinos. I don't buy the argument that "diversity" is inherently good, but as time goes on, the immigrants have not changed staid Minnesota all that much. Annual consumption of pho and burritos has gone up, but Minnesotans have not taken to goat meat. People are not flocking to become Moslems or Buddhists; the latest immigrants are not becoming Lutherans. Yet, anyway.

The United States has regional cultures which over-ride the single 'national' culture. The Deep South and the west coast are distinctly different. The Great Plains and mountain states are different than the east coast. New York and Omaha are not just different in size. Charting how immigrants might change the culture has to account for how the various American cultures are changing -- apart from immigration.

I would prefer that immigration be sharply limited, but in reality I don't think that will be possible. In the decades ahead, the disruptions of climate change, population growth, poverty, war, and injustice are going to let loose a lot of population movement--willing and unwilling, desired and not desired.

All true. :grin:

My instinct is towards open borders - but then if trade between nations actually worked so all tried to support each other, rather than competing to placate corporate and military interests, then I doubt that migration would produce many problems. I suppose this is in part because I don't see a reason to favour my country much over any other. In the future, though, none of these practices are going to keep people such as I in the west very safe anyway. The majority of our population will become more impoverished, but if we carry on as we are going we will still cleave to the interests at the top which are causing this.

I've also never really got the whole cultural concerns. Most of the cultural things I loved which have vanished have been from business striving for profits (so ripping down old shop fronts, buying up old follys, etc.), rather than a mosque or china town being built. Obviously that's just pissing in the wind though - the people who are concerned about these things are opaque to me. The only things which vaguely make sense are some PC take downs - such as the fact I can't watch The League of Gentlemen on BBC iplayer if I want to, because a character in it wears blackface. But I have it on DVD anyway.