An ongoing investigation by The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting has found the oversight of migrant housing is a fractured and ineffective system despite decades of reforms.
The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting hosted the "Covering the U.S. Visa System in Your Own Backyard" workshop April 10 - 12. Workshop events took place at Columbia College in Chicago, and speakers included veteran reporters and legal experts. Here's a summary of the first workshop event.
An attempted crackdown on minimum wage and child labor violations at berry farms in the Pacific Northwest has sparked a backlash that threatens one of the U.S. Labor Department’s most potent tools for enforcing protections for farm workers.
Sexual assault and harassment is a common problem when it comes to migrant farm workers. Attorney Karla Altmayer has worked to fight sexual assault in the workplace since 2010. Recently, she held a workshop in Kankakee, Ill., for migrant workers.
The Illinois Soybean Association is among several industries to oppose tighter regulations of pesticide protections for farm workers. The group – which represents 45,000 soybean producers in the state – filed a letter last week as part of a public comment period on proposed updates to the Agricultur
Each summer, hundreds of seasonal workers leave their homes in Texas and Mexico and travel more than 1,000 miles north to work in the corn fields of central Illinois. Many of those hundreds make their way to Rantoul, a village of about 13,000 people in Champaign County and the summer home of the Uni
A lack of enforcement or inspections and legal loopholes are leaving migrant workers in Iowa vulnerable, cheated of wages and living in substandard housing, an IowaWatch investigation revealed.
New technologies could help protect farmers, who work in the most deadly occupation in Iowa. Farm fatalities represent more than 30 percent of all occupational fatalities in the state, according to data from the Iowa Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation program. Lauren Mills from Iowa Watch ta
Grain bins, a common sight for anyone traveling through Iowa and other corn belt states, are a source of contention for agriculture safety specialists. Lack of research means specialists are unable to provide consistent advice to farmers about working in the storage bins. The safety experts are “dro
Iowa’s small farms are on their own when it comes to work safety, even though farmers suffer more fatal occupational injuries than any other kind of worker in the state. Limited Occupational Safety and Health Administration enforcement and coverage favors large farms, leaving the rest on an honors s
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is responsible for overseeing workplace safety, but the organization is handicapped when it comes to dealing with small farms and agriculture sites that handle grain. OSHA’s federal guidelines prohibit it from enforcing regulations through inspection
