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Florida's slave laborers

State and local authorities must be more vigilant to protect low-paid laborers in farming camps - often homeless or mentally ill - from predatory contractors.

It sounds like a bad 1950s chain-gang movie. Addicts, mentally ill drifters and homeless people are lured to isolated farming camps with promises of steady work and good pay. They soon become trapped in a coercive system, racking up huge debts to abusive crew chiefs. Encouraged to buy crack cocaine, cigarettes and alcohol on credit from the company store, they are charged loanshark-level interest and exorbitant fees for room and board, becoming virtual slave laborers.

Federal authorities say they have found a real-life example in licensed farm labor contractor Ronald Evans, whose East Palatka camp was raided last month by the U.S. attorney's office with a host of federal and local agencies. They discovered 148 rocks of crack cocaine and evidence the camp was polluting a nearby river with human waste, as former workers accused Evans of employing the "company store" set up to force them into indentured servitude.

As the investigations expand, Evans faces a growing list of charges and citations for code violations. But the activity raises an obvious question: Where are state and local officials while licensed contractors operate such obviously exploitive systems?

Experts say the recruitment techniques used by coercive crew chiefs are so well known - prospective workers are picked up in vans which troll rehab centers, homeless shelters and soup kitchens - that some facilities post signs warning people not to get into the vehicles. Though the practice has waned in recent years, there are a handful of other contractors in the North Florida area known for similar practices, according to Lisa Butler of Florida Rural Legal Services.

As a major national producer of citrus and vegetables, Florida has continually faced the challenge of protecting low-paid laborers from predatory contractors paid by farming companies to bring in work crews for picking and sorting. The abuse varies by region, with poor, mostly black workers exploited in North Florida's vegetable fields, while undocumented Hispanic workers pay off exorbitant fees to immigrant smugglers in the rest of the state, said U.S. Attorney Paul I. Perez, whose office has spearheaded the Evans investigation.

The workers often are severely compromised. Addicts with criminal records, undocumented workers in the country illegally, people with mental illnesses and the chronically homeless are the usual victims. For them, helping shut down an abusive contractor also can wipe out their only job and housing prospects.

State officials outline a system where such camps fall between the cracks, with health officials required to examine camp conditions while the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation interviews workers in the fields. (One unanswered question: Should Evans have received a valid contractor's license in Florida after paying more than $4,000 in federal fines following accusations of similar activities at a North Carolina camp he owned in 1992?) And though they were involved with last month's raid, Putnam County law enforcement officers and health department officials seemed unaware of the camp's problems before federal officials stepped in, according to the Florida Times-Union.

Such ignorance is inexcusable. As is the compliance of farming companies who employ shady contractors, tacitly tolerating the abuse in exchange for lowered labor costs.

State Sen. Tony Hill, D-Jacksonville, has suggested Florida build low-cost housing for farm workers, establish drug rehab centers near camps and eliminate cash payments to laborers. But more vigilance from state and local inspectors, police and agriculture companies is also needed. Florida must do more to ensure its agricultural industry is no longer balanced on the backs of slave laborers.

[Last modified July 23, 2005, 00:18:02]