Consumer groups oppose Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger – National Consumers League

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September 28, 2009

Contact: 202-835-3323, media@nclnet.org
Washington, DC — Several national consumer organizations have written to the Department of Justice opposing the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger, arguing that it would turn the “already questionable ticket selling industry into an even less competitive environment for consumers.”
The three groups signing the letter – the National Consumers League, Consumer Federation of America and Consumer Action – are concerned that the companies individually already own extremely large shares of the sectors in the live entertainment event industry, and that the merging of these two giants should be closely and skeptically reviewed under anti-trust law. This could turn the already questionable ticket selling industry into an even less competitive environment for consumers.
“Buying tickets to live performances in today’s marketplace is fraught with pitfalls for consumers. Tickets are put on the secondary market routinely – and marked up two to three times their value before consumers ever have a chance to buy them at face value. There is no transparency in the market, and this merger would only make the problem worse,” said Sally Greenberg, Executive Director of the National Consumers League. 
“If allowed to merge, these firms would control so much of the music marketplace that no one could stop them from raising ticket prices and service fees, meaning fans would pay,” said Linda Sherry, Consumer Action director of national priorities. “No single company should have that much control over access to live entertainment.”
The letter opposes the merger on two grounds:
First, the groups say the merger would create a “virtual monopoly in the ticketing industry.” Some industry experts estimate that Ticketmaster, which has secured its place in the market through long-term contracts with its clients, controls up to 70 or 80 percent of all concert ticket sales. Live Nation, which entered the ticket-selling market in early 2009, “has already demonstrated its potential to become Ticketmaster’s only significant competitor.”
Second, the letter states that the merger would “create a massive entertainment giant, Live Nation Entertainment, which would hold significant market shares in the artist management, venue operation, event promotion, ticketing, and secondary ticketing sectors of the live entertainment event industry.”

Ticket Sales Merger Under Scrutiny – National Consumers League

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Consumers who purchase tickets to concerts, sporting events, and other live entertainment may be interested in what consumer groups fear would result in a monopoly in the industry: a proposed merger between giants Ticketmaster and Live Nation.

Consumer advocates are warning the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division that a merger between Ticketmaster, which already has a major hold on the market, controlling up to 70 or 80 percent of all concert ticket sales, and Live Nation, a new company that appears to have the potential to become Ticketmaster’s only significant competitor, would be a negative for consumers.

A merger, say advocates from National Consumers League, Consumer Federation of America, and Consumer Action, would leave consumers with few options and vulnerable to hikes in ticket prices, service fees, and the negative consequences of monopolies. To read the groups’ letter to DOJ, click here.

Retirement USA Seeking to Improve System – National Consumers League

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By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

Consumer organizations do so much great work in the financial services area — working against predatory loans, fighting outrageous fees and surcharges on credit cards, demanding truth in lending and transparency in credit scores. But often our attention is focused on the here and now. What about working to ensure that consumers have a secure and adequate retirement?

NCL was invited to a meeting last week with leaders of the *Retirement USA, a group formed by the Economic Policy Institute, the Pension Rights Center, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, and the Service Employees International Union, which holds a seat on the NCL Board. Retirement USA’s goal is to get widespread agreement on a series of principles that move Americans toward a far more sound retirement system than what exists today.

The facts about Americans entering retirement are grim:

  • Only half of full-time private-sector employees participate in a retirement system.  The participation rate drops to 45 percent if part-time employees are included.
  • Only 20 percent of American private-sector workers participate in traditional pension plans that provide guaranteed, lifetime benefits.
  • 30 percent of American private-sector workers rely entirely on 401(k) plans to supplement Social Security.
  • 2/3 of 401(k) plan investments are in stocks, and stocks have lost more than half their value since 2007.
  • Half of all workers with 401(k)-type plans had less than $25,000 in their accounts – before the stock market meltdown – and the median 401(k) balance for workers over the age of 55 was only $40,000.
  • 64 percent of older Americans depend on Social Security for more than half of their income, and one of five receives all of their income from Social Security.
  • Social Security benefits for the average retiree are now $13,863, just barely more than the minimum wage.
  • Half of people age 65 and older receive income of less than $17,382 a year from all sources.

Retirement USA has laid out a series of *important principles that would – if adopted – help to secure adequate retirement for all workers:

  • Universal coverage – every worker should be covered by a retirement plan in addition to Social Security.
  • Secure retirement – retirement shouldn’t be a gamble; workers should be able to count on a steady lifetime stream of retirement income to supplement Social Security.
  • Adequate Income – everyone should have an adequate retirement income after a lifetime of work.
  • Shared responsibility – employers, employees, and the government should share this responsibility.
  • Required contributions – employees and employers should be required to contribute a specified percent of pay; government should subsidize lower income workers.
  • Contributions to the system should be pooled and professionally managed to minimize risk.
  • Payouts should only be permitted before retirement except for permanent disability.
  • Benefits should be paid out over the lifetime of retirees and not given in a lump sum.
  • Benefits should be portable when workers change jobs.
  • Voluntary contributions should be permitted.
  • Efficient and transparent administration of benefits by a government agency or a private nonprofit.
  • There ought to be effective oversight of the new system by a single government regulator dedicated solely to promoting retirement security.

The National Consumers League supports these principles, especially in light of the dire economic reality most American workers face when they retire. The League’s early leaders were strong supporters of Social Security, which is a lifeline to older Americans, but was never intended to be their sole support. Retirement USA has laid out the blueprint for reform. Now it is time for consumer groups, unions. and others to make that blueprint a reality.

 

*Links are no longer active as the original sources have removed the content, sometimes due to federal website changes or restructurings.

LifeSmarts 16th Season Underway! – National Consumers League

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LifeSmarts – the ultimate consumer challenge, has opened its 16th season, and the online competition, which tests teens in the areas of personal finance, consumer rights and responsibilities, health and safety, technology and the environment, officially has officially begun! We have been super busy this summer! LifeSmarts has begun to implement a number of upgrades and additions to the national program, Web site, and national competition.

LifeSmarts.org A major addition to the program and to www.lifesmarts.org is the creation of LifeSmarts University, a virtual classroom that complements that LifeSmarts program. “LifeSmarts U” will be live September 21, and it will include lessons in the Tech Lab as well as five brand new personal finance lessons, found in the Finance Department, that were developed thanks to an unrestricted educational grant from Visa. As a re-branded and more extensive version of the current LifeSmarts Tech Lab, LifeSmarts U will eventually feature lessons from all five LifeSmarts topic areas – so be on the lookout for more lessons to come!

The Program. LifeSmarts has also developed two newsletters, available at www.lifesmarts.org. LifeSmarts Coach’s Notes is a monthly newsletter for LifeSmarts coaches, which includes lesson plans and activities focusing on one LifeSmarts topic area per month. The LifeSmarts Sponsor Update is a bi-monthly newsletter for LifeSmarts sponsors, supporters and general enthusiasts, including monthly program updates and national and state program sponsor features.

We are also now on Facebook and Twitter, and welcome all LifeSmarts participants and enthusiasts to become a part of our online community!

National Competition. New components are planned for the 2010 LifeSmarts National Competition, to be held in Miami Beach, Florida, from April 24-27, at the Miami Beach Resort. New competition formats will allow students to compete more often and in fun, exciting new ways. A few hints about these improvements include: cumulative scores, the ability to challenge answers, and new ways to earn points! We will be keeping you posted throughout the program year as these upgrades are finalized, so make sure to check www.lifesmarts.org and our newsletters for more information. We appreciate everyone who has been involved with LifeSmarts – thanks for making it a part of your school, work, and extracurricular activities. We are looking forward to an exciting new year, and we hope you will join us!

Consumer Groups, Feds, Industry Convene to Discuss National Food Policy – National Consumers League

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By Courtney Brein, Linda Golodner Food Safety and Nutrition Fellow

The National Consumers League was pleased to join fellow consumer advocates along with government and food industry representatives at last week’s 32nd annual National Food Policy Conference.  The conference, sponsored by the Consumer Federation of America and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, focused on two key issues of national concern: food safety and child nutrition.  On food safety, the conference proved particularly timely.

Lately, unease about the safety of the food supply in the United States has grown, fueled by outbreaks of food-borne illness linked to contaminated peanut butter and cookie dough.  A *Pew-commissioned bipartisan poll of Iowa voters released during the conference found that approximately half of those polled stated that events of the past year have decreased their confidence in the safety of food sold in this country.  A *Pew-commissioned nationwide poll released at the same time found that concern about the safety of imported foods has increased since 2008; 64 percent of Americans surveyed believe imported foods to be “often or sometimes unsafe,” whereas only 53 percent of likely voters expressed these concerns in 2008.  The poll also found that 89 percent of participants want stronger food safety measures and 91 percent want more frequent inspections of high-risk food processing facilities.

Modernized food safety laws are long overdue.  Many food safety regulations have not been updated since 1906, when President Theodore Roosevelt signed into law the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act, legislation that the National Consumers League played a key role in passing.  In July, the House passed the Food Safety Enhancement Act, *H.R. 2749, which would increase the regulatory powers of the FDA, require imported food to meet the same safety standards as food produced in the United States, establish a national food tracing system, and require all food processing facilities to implement food safety plans.  Food safety advocates hope that the Senate version of the bill, which does not include all provisions in the House bill, will come up for consideration this session.

During her keynote speech, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg detailed the FDA’s plans to strengthen its own programs and policies, measures which include appointing a Deputy Commissioner for Foods.  Hamburg also noted a fundamental change in perspective at the FDA: “We are pressing forward with a new agenda: to shift the agency’s emphasis away from mitigating public health harm by removing unsafe products from the market place, to…prevent[ing] harm by keeping unsafe food from entering commerce in the first place.”  The Commissioner announced the *Reportable Food Registry, a new initiative requiring food industry officials to electronically report cases of probable food contamination within 24 hours of discovery.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius echoed Commissioner Hamburg’s commitment to cross-agency collaboration and noted that new preventive measures will not only save lives but will generate significant cost savings as well.  Secretary Sebelius used her speech before an audience of many consumer advocates to announce the launch of www.foodsafety.gov , a joint initiative of the USDA and HHS that will provide consumers with a one-stop source for information about the latest recalls and outbreaks.

The National Consumers League applauds the collaborative approach embraced by the Obama administration and strongly supports much needed food safety reform.

 

*Links are no longer active as the original sources have removed the content, sometimes due to federal website changes or restructurings.

C.A.R.E. Act Introduced to Protect Young Farmworkers – National Consumers League

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Today, Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) has introduced H.R. 3564, the Children’s Act for Responsible Employment (CARE), legislation that would close loopholes that permit the children of migrant and seasonal farmworkers to work for wages when they are only 12- and 13-years-old.

NCL’s Sally Greenberg says: “Child farmworkers are exposed to many dangers—farm machinery, heat stroke, and pesticides among them—and perform back-breaking labor that is not fit for children. It’s time to level the playing field by closing these archaic loopholes and offering these children the same protections that all other American kids enjoy. We applaud Rep. Roybal-Allard’s leadership in introducing CARE.”

Read what the *Child Labor Coalition and Human Rights Watch have to say about the new bill.

 

*Links are no longer active as the original sources have removed the content, sometimes due to federal website changes or restructurings.

Air of Hopefulness at Obama Wall Street Speech – National Consumers League

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By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

New York, NY – There was an air of excitement at historic Federal Hall yesterday – a historic setting for President Obama’s “tough love” speech delivered on Wall Street at the place where George Washington took the oath of office. Yes, despite reports in the major newspapers of a grim-faced audience hearing *the President’s words, I was there for the speech with NCL Board member Sam Simon, and we both thought there was an air of hopefulness among the Wall Street audience. There was a sense that we’ve turned a corner and that there are better economic times ahead. The president received sustained applause as he walked in and stood at the podium: as if the audience was saying – “we know you are under attack by the right – and maybe you’re disrespected in other parts of the country – not here in New York City – here we support you!”

The audience included the President’s economic team – Treasury Secretary Tim Geitner, Christina Romer, Paul Volcker and a host of New York officials – Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silvers and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, among them, and Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Barney Frank (D-MA).

This was the one-year anniversary of the Lehman Brothers’ collapse. After chronicling the crisis of a year ago, Obama noted, “We helped to restore capital and confidence… We’re putting people to work, repairing roads and bridges and hospitals. Eight months later this effort continues. We can be confident that the storms of the last few years are beginning to break.” He noted that consumer advocates had played an important role in working for legislative reforms.

But the president also admonished Wall Street not to return to some of their worst practices. “Normalcy cannot lead to complacency. Some are misreading this moment. They are choosing to ignore those lessons at our nation’s peril. I want everyone to hear my words. We won’t go back. . . too many were motivated by an appetite for quick kills. And expect taxpayers to break their fall.”

Ultimately the President wants to create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and consumer groups strongly support such an entity – whose primary function will be to protect consumers against intentionally complex agreements with “gotcha” clauses that bury information about fees while creating uniform regulations so banks and financial firms can’t shop around for the most hands-off regulatiors, as they do today, exploiting loopholes in the system.

The President closed with this message to Wall Street: You don’t have to wait for government to force you to act responsibly, do it on your own! For example, he told them “put your 2009 bonuses up for shareholder vote.”

We thought the President hit all the right points, cajoling Wall Street, while affirming the good things about our economic system when it is working effectively: stimulating competition and spurring innovation. It was important to mark the one-year anniversary of a darker time, and highlight government’s role in protecting companies and consumers from what might have been a more prolonged and far harsher economic toll.

 

*Links are no longer active as the original sources have removed the content, sometimes due to federal website changes or restructurings.

NCL praises DOL for new weapon in the fight against child labor – National Consumers League

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September 14, 2009

Newly released DOL list of goods produced by child labor and forced labor may help reduce the number of exploited child and adult laborers

Contact: 202-835-3323, media@nclnet.org

Washington, D.C.—The National Consumers League (NCL) today hailed the release of a long-awaited report identifying over 100 goods produced by child or forced labor in more than 50 countries around the world.

“According to the International Labor Organization, extreme poverty compels more than 200 million children to perform child labor around the world. This new list of products tainted by child labor will be an invaluable tool for consumers who want products free from forced and child labor,” said NCL’s Executive Director Sally Greenberg.

“Most Americans and most consumers in the world market would not choose to purchase goods known to be produced by exploited children or forced laborers—at any price,” noted Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis in a foreword to the report, which was produced by DOL’s Bureau of International Affairs Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking.

Of the 122 goods indentified in the report, the majority are in agriculture, an industry in which, globally, seven in 10 working children toil. Many of the most common agricultural products end up in the homes of American consumers, including cotton, sugar, tobacco, coffee, rice, and cocoa.

“Manufactured goods” (including clothing, footwear, and carpets) and “mined or quarried goods”—bricks, coal, gold, and minerals such as coltan used in electronics —follow as the next two leading categories of child labor.

Founded in 1899, NCL, the nation’s oldest consumer advocacy organization, has historically fought to reduce abusive child labor and to increase protections for American workers. For the last 20 years, NCL has coordinated the Child Labor Coalition (CLC), a group of 20-plus organizations committed to reducing exploitative child labor and child trafficking. The CLC and its members are working to decrease child labor in many of the products and countries cited in the report including cotton in Uzbekistan, cocoa in West Africa, rubber in Liberia, and shrimp in South Asia.

Mandated by language in the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Acts of 2005 and 2008, the report is is charged with examining foreign child labor; however, it briefly notes that the United States is not without child labor problems. DOL’s Wage and Hour Division found 4,734 minors illegally employed in fiscal year 2008. In 40 percent of the child labor violations cited, children were working in hazardous conditions or using equipment deemed too dangerous for minors to use.

“Hundreds of thousand of children are allowed to work in American agriculture on non-family farms at very young ages because of loopholes in U.S. child labor law,” said Reid Maki, NCL’s Director of Social Responsibility and Fair Labor Standards. “Many of these child farm workers are only 12- and 13-years-old, and they work because they are from poor families. We should clean up our own child labor problems if we are going to ask other countries to stop the exploitation of child workers.”

Enhanced enforcement efforts at DOL have begun to address concerns about very young children working in agriculture. Earlier this year, DOL fined five North Carolina blueberry growers for employing minors under the legal age.

“We’re encouraged by expanding enforcement efforts, and this list is a great starting point for consumers, companies, and government officials to devise strategies to reduce child and forced labor in specific products,” said Greenberg. “As the report points out, ‘When problems are known and understood, they can be addressed’.”

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About the National Consumers League

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

Social networking security and safety tips – National Consumers League

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Social networking sites enable people to post information about themselves and communicate with others around the world. While you can make new friends through social networking sites, you may also be exposed to embarrassing situations and people who have bad intentions, such as hackers, identity thieves, con artists, and predators.

Protect yourself by taking some common-sense precautions.

  • Guard your financial and other sensitive information. Never provide or post your Social Security number, address, phone number, bank account or credit card numbers, or other personal information that could be used by criminals.
  • Picture social networking sites as billboards in cyberspace. Police, college admissions personnel, employers, stalkers, con artists, nosy neighbors – anyone can see what you post. Don’t disclose anything about yourself, your friends, or family members that you wouldn’t want to be made public. And remember that once information appears on a Web site, it can never be completely erased. Even if it’s modified or deleted, older versions may exist on others’ computers. Some social networking sites allow users to restrict access to certain people. Understand how the site works and what privacy choices you may have.
  • Be cautious about meeting your new cyber friends in person. After all, it’s hard to judge people by photos or information they post about themselves. If you decide to meet someone in person, do so during the day in a public place, and ask for information that you can verify, such as the person’s place of employment. 
  • Think twice before clicking on links or downloading attachments in emails. They may contain viruses or spyware that could damage your computer or steal your personal information – including your online passwords and account numbers. Some messages may “spoof,” or copy the email addresses of friends to fool you into thinking that they’re from them. Don’t click on links or download attachments in emails from strangers, and if you get an unexpected message from someone whose address you recognize, check with them directly before clicking on links or attachments.
  • Protect your computer. A spam filter can help reduce the number of unwanted emails you get. Anti-virus software, which scans incoming messages for troublesome files, and anti-spyware software, which looks for programs that have been installed on your computer and track your online activities without your knowledge, can protect you from online identity theft. Firewalls prevent hackers and unauthorized communications from entering your computer – which is especially important if you have a broadband connection because your computer is open to the Internet whenever it’s turned on. Look for programs that offer automatic updates and take advantage of free patches that manufacturers offer to fix newly discovered problems. Go to www.staysafeonline.org or www.onguardonline.gov to learn more about how to keep your computer secure.
  • Beware of con artists. Criminals scan social networking sites to find potential victims for all sorts of scams, from phony lotteries to bogus employment and business opportunities to investment fraud. In some cases they falsely befriend people and then ask for money for medical expenses or other emergencies, or to come to the United States from another country. Go to www.fraud.org to learn more about how to recognize different types of Internet fraud.

Slaughterhouse in Iowa takes advantage of child labor – National Consumers League

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Immigration officials raided the Agriprocessors kosher meat plant in Postville, Iowa, uncovering health and safety violations and illegal, dangerous employment of minors. NCL sent our child labor expert Reid Maki to Postville report on a community still reeling.

Since the immigration raid on the Agriprocessors kosher meat plant in Postville, Iowa last May, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which maintains a seat on the board of the National Consumers League (NCL), has diligently been trying to alert the nation that minors were working in the plant, which it had been trying to organize (along with an Agriprocessors plant in Brooklyn) since 2005. Because of its child labor work, the staff at NCL took great interest in the possibility of child labor at the plant.  In late August, the state of Iowa announced the findings of its child labor investigation, concluding that 57 minors, aged 14 to 17, were employed illegally in the slaughterhouse under working conditions rife with health and safety violations. With dozens of articles about the working conditions and child labor at the plant in the national media, including extensive coverage in the New York Times, Sally decided that the story was too big for NCL not to take action, given our history of advocacy on child labor, sweatshops, and worker rights. The nightmarish working conditions seemed eerily similar to those NCL’s founders fought 100 years ago.

I flew out for a two-day visit to do our own investigation.

Immigration Raid Nearly Destroys Town

Three months after the raid in May, the families of primarily Guatemalan workers who were detained were still reeling. I visited St. Bridget’s Catholic Church where I found a long line of women, about 30 in all—mostly indigenous people from Guatemala— patiently waiting for help. Unable to work—their husbands in prison—the women were facing deportation with only the church standing between them and starvation.

The church was paying their rent, utilities, and food bills. Many wives had not even been told what penal facility their husbands were being held in. They could only hope and pray that they—and their children (many of whom were born in the United States and are citizens of this country)—someday, somehow will be reunited with their husbands. I had extensive conversations with members of the clergy. One priest had been in the plant and confirmed the unsafe, unsanitary conditions that have been suggested by the fines levied by the state of Iowa. 

Accomplished with assault rifles and a helicopter, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid clearly cost the federal government several million dollars to perform. Only the future will determine whether it deters future illegal immigration. But by threatening to charge the workers with aggravated identity theft and forcing them to agree to a five-month prison sentence, ICE had been overzealous in the minds of many advocates in Postville and beyond. The workers were processed for arrest at a livestock facility in Waterloo—the National Cattle Congress—leaving many advocates to wonder if ICE viewed the workers as less-than-human.

The approach ICE took in the courts certainly raised questions about whether the workers received a fair day in court. Essentially, ICE told them that they should plead guilty to intentionally using false Social Security Numbers—the workers were merely using numbers to work, not to commit fraud and steal funds—for which they would be sentenced to five months in prison. If they decided to fight the charge, they would be held indefinitely in jail until their trial date (there would be no opportunity for bail because they were deemed to be in the country illegally). They would then be charged with aggravated identity theft. If found guilty, they would likely receive a stiffer sentence and then be deported. The workers, who had very little time to discuss the case with their federally-appointed attorneys, decided they had little choice but to plead guilty.  They were “tried” in court in groups of five or six. Attorneys and judges were provided with scripts by ICE prosecution teams. As Erik Camayd-Freixas, an interpreter for the immigrants who was hired by ICE, has noted in an important essay about the raid, the men were “caught between hopelessness and despair”. Many wept in fear of what would become of their families while they were imprisoned. Despite their guilty pleas, the workers, argued Camayd-Freixas, were most likely innocent. They did not seem to understand what a Social Security Number was or how the numbers got on their applications so in Camayd-Freixas’s view they could not “knowingly” have used the fake numbers—criteria of the charge. 

One supervisor at Agriprocessors has pled guilty to falsifying paperwork and knowingly hiring undocumented workers. Another awaits trial. However, ICE has not gone after the owners of Agriprocessors who benefited the most from the illegal labor. Agriprocessors is still open for business, although its output has been diminished. Plant managers are struggling to find workers. In their desperation, they are importing a group of impoverished Micronesians who are allowed to work in the United States under treaty agreements. Local radio personality Jeff Abbas fears that the workers will be little more than indentured servants, trapped halfway around the world from their island homes.

The ICE raid has clearly devastated the town of Postville, removing a third of the population of 2,500 people overnight. Businesses have had to close. Others are trying to hang on. The schools are wondering how they can absorb the loss of state funding that accompanies such a massive drop in enrollment. Some have wondered if the town will survive the raid. If not for the church’s assistance, the workers’ families would have faced hunger and homelessness.

Child Labor

Despite a gag order placed on the child laborers by their attorney, one of the reporters I met during my visit was able to take me to the home of a 16-year-old who had worked in the plant up until the raid. She would not talk to me because of the gag order but her brother, Esteban, 18, had worked in the plant two years ago when he was 16. He was willing to talk.

Esteban told us that he worked long 12-hour days cutting cow legs. He showed us a nasty scar on his elbow where he had stabbed himself accidentally while cutting meat. His supervisors at Agriprocessors quickly bandaged up his wound and told him to go back to work. He said cuts were common because the line of moving meat went so quickly. 

State labor law prohibits minors from working in the slaughter and packing areas of plants because the labor is deemed too dangerous for minors. His employers knew he was underage but didn’t care, said Esteban, whose hourly pay was $6.25. His employer required him to purchase the knives that he used in the plant at a price of $60 and then they took out another $80 for gloves. He was routinely shorted a few hours of work in every paycheck. The plant refused to pay him and his mother, Veronica, for the overtime work they performed. The supervisors would tell them that “if they didn’t like it, they didn’t have to work there,” said Veronica.

According to a New York Times report published August 6, another youth, Elmer, said that when he was 16 working in the plant, a supervisor kicked him, causing a knife to cut his elbow. Elmer reported that he worked 17-hour shifts, six days a week. His life consisted of nothing but work and sleep, he testified in an affidavit. “I was very sad,” he said, “and I felt like a slave.” 

“It was no big secret that kids were working at the plant,” Jeff Abbas of Postville’s KPVL radio station told me.

Plant management denied knowingly hiring minors. Getzel Rubashkin, the grandson of Agriprocessors’ founder, told NCL that the underage hirings were the result of paperwork errors and not any intent to employ minors.

Many of the young workers—mostly from Guatemala—were undocumented. Because of their age, ICE officials who raided the plant in May did not detain and charge them with identify theft as they did the adults detained.

Despite fears, the raid did not destroy the state’s child labor investigation, which ultimately revealed a problem that American consumers should consider far more serious than the employment of a few hundred undocumented immigrants: the employment of nearly 60 children in one of America’s most dangerous work places.

For the National Consumers League the discovery of such a large group of children working in slaughterhouse raises the possibility that minors may be working in other meat packing houses. 

Unfortunately, according to a hearing in the House of Representatives held this summer, the U.S. Department of Labor has only one labor inspector for every 10,000 businesses. One witness, Kim Bobo, the director of Interfaith Worker Justice (and a speaker at our June centennial conference on Muller v. Oregon), told representatives that if the ratio of investigators to businesses that existed in 1941 held today, we would have 34,000 investigators. Instead, there are fewer than 750.

One might also speculate that if the Agriprocessors plant had been unionized, the child labor violations would have been prevented and the plant’s awful track record on health and safety violations would have been mitigated.

 Our next advocacy steps

  • We have submitted an op-ed to several newspapers, including the New York Times, USA Today, and The Christian Science Monitor, discussing Postville and using it as an argument for doubling the number of federal child labor investigators.
  • We will ask U.S. DOL by letter to conduct a targeted investigation of meatpacking around the nation.
  • We have communicated our concerns to Iowa’s Senator Tom Harkin, with whom we work closely on child labor issues.
  • NCL also plans to continue efforts to get the Department of Labor (DOL) to increase the number of jobs that are defined as “hazardous” —and prohibited—for teenagers. Despite strong recommendations to enhance these “hazardous orders” from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and NCL’s Child Labor Coalition, DOL has dragged its feet on improving the “Hazardous Orders” and refused to act to protect working children.
  • NCL will also pursue strengthening state child labor laws. I recently attended the national convention of the Interstate Labor Standards Association, a gathering of the state officials who enforce child labor laws, to help further that purpose. We are also conducting a review of state labor laws to help us target those states whose laws need the most improvement.
  • On September 23, Sally Greenberg is scheduled to testify before the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections on behalf of the Child Labor Coalition. Sally will push for an increase in the number of federal child labor investigators and prod U.S. DOL to implement NIOSH’s recommendations to improve the Hazardous Orders and further protect working children. NCL is working with congressional staff to organize the hearing and ensure that the “Children in the Fields” issue and the Postville issue are highlighted during the hearing.