March 2, 2023 www.investigatemidwest.org Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting
US program failing to protect farmworkers
In the 1970s, after a lawsuit claimed widespread discrimination of farmworkers, the federal government created a program to directly inform them of their rights. Named the Monitor Advocate System, it aims to protect farmworkers in every state.
But in recent years, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, the system largely failed farmworkers, Investigate Midwest found.
A key component of the system is outreach, but some states, such as Illinois, shut that down when the coronavirus hit. The system has also struggled to retain qualified personnel. As one former system official put it, just hiring a body won't work.
— Sky Chadde, assistant editor/senior reporter
Government system for protecting farmworkers plagued by staff turnover and lack of outreach
Sky Chadde and Johnathan Hettinger, Investigate Midwest
The Monitor Advocate System grew from the complaints of farmworkers about 50 years ago.
Job centers, created in the depths of the Great Depression, were supposed to facilitate the same career prospects for all workers. However, the centers referred farmworkers to employers that stole their wages and provided unsafe housing, the workers alleged.
In 1974, Charles R. Richey, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled in the case. (More famously, he ruled the tapes Richard Nixon created while president were not personal records.) Finding the Department of Labor infringed the farmworkers’ rights, he laid out the federal and state partnership that would become the Monitor Advocate System.
One element essential to the system’s success is outreach. Many farmworkers do not walk through the job centers’ doors.
But many of the issues Richey identified decades ago continue to vex states, according to internal reviews and corrective action plans.
Read more.
The Iowa SNAP misdirection game
By Dave Dickey, Columnist
Moving its way through the Iowa Legislature is a doozy of a bill that, as introduced, would have prohibited residents on the federal food assistance program from buying fresh meat, poultry and fresh fish.
In hog-happy Iowa.
For good measure also on the no-no list for SNAP dollars: nuts and seeds, flour, butter, cooking oil, soup, canned fruits and vegetables, frozen prepared foods, snack foods, herbs, and spices.
But there's another important element of the bill no one is talking about.
Read more.
Join us in Iowa City for 'Home Grown' storytelling event
Investigate Midwest and its IowaWatch newsroom plans its annual Spring Storytelling Night at The Graduate Hotel in Iowa City on Thursday, April 20.
This event is co-produced with the University of Iowa Events Management Certification program.
Doors open with music starting at 5:45 p.m. Attendees can order appetizers or dinner on their own and enjoy a themed drink ahead of the speakers starting at 6:30. Tickets are $20 and include a free drink. (They can be purchased ahead of time or at the door.)
A handful of speakers will share their stories around the theme of "Home Grown." There will be a silent auction and a themed Trivia Contest. This event is being sponsored in part by Alan Swanson with Blank and McCune, The Real Estate Company, in Iowa City.
Iowa Public Radio's Charity Nebbe will be introducing the speakers, and IPR will broadcast its recording of the event following the evening. (Watch for scheduling announcements.)
And save the date! The 2023 Sunset on the Farm fundraiser will be Sunday, Sept. 10, at the Walker Homestead outside of Iowa City with doors opening at 5 p.m. Tickets will include wood-fired pizza, salad and make-your-own s'mores around a campfire. There will be music, a silent auction and more for a fun evening at a beautiful location. Watch for more details coming soon.
Other news
When an 8-year-old boy died on a dairy farm, immigrants knew one story; law enforcement had another
The call to 911 came in a little after 11 p.m. A man said a small boy on his dairy farm had severe head injuries. He said he thought the boy had been trampled by a cow.
Ann Ingolia, a deputy for the Dane County Sheriff’s Office, was in the middle of her shift when she heard the dispatch on this warm summer night in 2019. She turned on her siren and headed over, down winding roads and rolling hills, past the farms and fields that mark the landscape of this part of south-central Wisconsin.
Lights from an ambulance and other emergency vehicles flickered over the property. When she arrived, Ingolia could see paramedics attending to a boy on the ground near the milking parlor.
Read more.
This story was originally published by ProPublica.
