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When Labor Laws Left Farm Workers Behind — and Vulnerable to Abuse

Kamala Kelkar PBS NewsHour
“The original, Southern desire to preserve an exploited, economically deprived non-white agricultural labor force pinned to the bottom of the social and economic hierarchy continues to manifest itself full force,” Law Professor Juan Perea of Loyola University said. “The only difference today is now it’s brown and black people.”

In Building Boom Immigrant Workers Face Exploitation

Beth Healy and Megan Woolhouse The Boston Globe
A Globe investigation found that these workers, eager for a paycheck, are often paid below the prevailing wage and illegally, in cash. They are also the most likely to be subjected to unsafe work conditions, without insurance to cover medical bills or lost pay if they get hurt. And the unscrupulous contractors who employ them are too seldom caught and penalized.

This Day in Labor History: September 16, 2004

Erik Loomis Lawyers, Guns and Money
On September 16, 2004, Mt. Olive Pickles finally came to an agreement with the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, ending a lengthy boycott of the company. This groundbreaking farm workers union launched one of the most successful organizing campaigns of the last 25 years in the South and demonstrate the continued vitality of farmworker unions in the present. FLOC was successful with these workers because they became a way for workers to express their own power.

Because Scott Walker Asked . . .

Ed Pilkington and the Guardian US interactive team The Guardian
Leaked court documents from ‘John Doe investigation’ in Wisconsin lay bare pervasive influence of corporate cash on modern US elections

Giraffes Get Caught Up in the Great Genetics Nerd Fight

Marley Walker Wired
Just like taxonomists have debated over which physical characteristics warrant a new species designation, they’re conflicted over how much genetic variation you need to prove differentiation.

A 9/11 Retrospective: The U.S. Air Wars, 15 Years and Counting

Tom Englehardt TomDispatch
The U.S response to 9/11, which began with the Bush Administration’s shock-and-awe air strikes and invasions and continued through the Obama Administration, cost ten of thousands of civilian lives and trillions of dollars, and bombed and missiled a world of Islamist terror outfits into existence. At 15 years and counting the U.S. air campaign has spread across the Greater Middle East and parts of Africa and shows no sign of ending, despite its spectacular failure.

Trump Hints at Clinton's Assassination Again

Richard Luscombe The Guardian
The call to leave the Democratic nominee protected by unarmed secret service agents, first made by Trump in May, raised eyebrows as a reversion to the undisciplined candidate of the primaries rather than the more scripted one of recent weeks.