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alp227

(32,056 posts)
Fri Jun 29, 2012, 10:43 PM Jun 2012

Wal-Mart Suspends Seafood Supplier Over Work Conditions

Source: New York Times

Wal-Mart Stores has suspended one of its seafood suppliers in the South as an advocacy group for foreign workers pressed the retailer to improve working conditions there and at a dozen other suppliers cited for hundreds of federal labor violations.

The advocacy group, the National Guestworker Alliance, said on Friday that it had found terrible conditions at C. J.'s Seafood, a crawfish company in Breaux Bridge, La. Several immigrant workers said they had been forced to work 16 to 24 hours consecutively and had even been locked into the plant. Guest workers said they sometimes labored more than 80 hours a week, had been threatened with beatings to press them to work faster and had been warned that their families in Mexico would be hurt if they complained to government agencies.

"It's one of the worst workplaces we ever encountered anywhere," said Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, a university-sponsored monitoring group that was asked by the guest-worker advocates to investigate C. J.'s Seafood. "The extreme lengths of the shifts people were required to work, the employer's brazenness in violating wage laws, the extent of the psychological abuse the workers faced and the threats of violence against their families -that combination made it one of the most egregious workplaces we've examined, whether here or overseas."

Read more: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/business/wal-mart-suspends-seafood-supplier-over-work-conditions.xml



Good. Next, the feds should bust up this illegal employer up to revocation of corporate charter. In fact, slave labor around the world is used for seafood farming, as "The Young Turks" has reported;



12 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Wal-Mart Suspends Seafood Supplier Over Work Conditions (Original Post) alp227 Jun 2012 OP
What? ForgoTheConsequence Jun 2012 #1
Daaaaaaaaaamn AtheistCrusader Jun 2012 #3
It is true that many fish farming operations..... DeSwiss Jun 2012 #2
Thanks for those. Quantess Jun 2012 #10
Superb! Sherman A1 Jun 2012 #4
Several DUers signed an E petition on this Omaha Steve Jun 2012 #5
Headline should be" "Pot Suspends Kettle for Worker Mistreatment" marble falls Jun 2012 #6
hahaha very true brovibes Jun 2012 #7
How bad do you have to be before Wal Mart no longer wants to associate with you? 6000eliot Jun 2012 #8
My thouights exactly Alcibiades Jun 2012 #9
Wally World has done a couple things right lately. crim son Jun 2012 #11
My first reaction: What were they doing, offering sick-time and benefits hughee99 Jun 2012 #12
 

DeSwiss

(27,137 posts)
2. It is true that many fish farming operations.....
Fri Jun 29, 2012, 11:36 PM
Jun 2012

...particularly overseas, have a history of using chemicals and methods that would turn most people's stomachs and/or violate laws and regulations. But not all of them.

And as the oil and chemical industries pollute our water resources more and more, fish, crayfish, lobster and vertical urban farms are becoming the future of farming. Less pollution, no pesticides nor herbicides are needed. This is a growth area.

- Many farmers who find themselves incapable of competing with Big Ag are now turning to fish/shrimp farming and aquaponics.....













Redclaw Crawfish Farming
{crawfish as large as lobsters}

K&R

Alcibiades

(5,061 posts)
9. My thouights exactly
Sat Jun 30, 2012, 12:19 PM
Jun 2012

And the answer is, pretty horrific. Of course, it helps that this is a US employer. I'm sure these abuses happen regularly at many of the Chinese suppliers for Wal-Mart, but they would never stop using an overseas supplier for doing this, because, if they did, they wouldn't have anything to sell.

crim son

(27,464 posts)
11. Wally World has done a couple things right lately.
Sat Jun 30, 2012, 04:26 PM
Jun 2012

While there are still so many wrongs, I applaud any step they make in the right direction.

hughee99

(16,113 posts)
12. My first reaction: What were they doing, offering sick-time and benefits
Sat Jun 30, 2012, 07:40 PM
Jun 2012

to all employees, and Walmart was afraid those "work conditions" might spread.

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