Sugar's nasty stuff, once you get over the whole makes-the-world-a-sweeter-place thing.
Most of the sugar consumed in the states comes from about 20 to 30 miles from where I'm sitting now.
Leaving aside the fact that they drained most of the Everglades to set up sugar plantations oh those many years ago - an environmental sin for which we're *still* paying, and will continue to pay for decades to come (runoff from those swamps used to nourish coral reefs, which kept the beaches from eroding, and today our peninsula is actually vanishing because of coral die-offs)- the sugar industry also represents the worst that big business has to offer.
I think they're the only major industry to be caught violating anti-slavery laws in America since the Civil War (this page says it was in 1942, but I'm sure there was something within my lifetime, too). After the 1940s incident, they shipped in Caribbean laborers for the harvest and shipped them out whenever one hacks off his own foot. Apparently, they mechanized less than 10 years ago, which is OK, but it's still the same guys in charge. And the legal cases are ongoing.
quote:excerpt:
If the cutters win, each worker would recover only about $2000 per season worked. But that's a lot of money to many of them who have returned to their Third World countries. Harold Frazer, a Jamaican who worked for Atlantic for two years in the late '80s and emigrated to Canada rather than going home, says he needs the money since being laid off from his factory job in Downsview, Ontario. "They didn't pay us fair," he says. "I never go back."
Frazer and other cutters were selected in their home countries by U.S. sugar representatives, who inspected their hands and bodies for strength. The men signed a contract, without any explanation or a full opportunity to read it, Frazer and other cutters say. They were flown to Miami and bused to Belle Glade, then dispersed to various camps and assigned beds in large dormitories without air conditioning or heating. Every day, including Sundays and holidays, they would be awakened at 4:30 a.m. and bused to the fields by 7 a.m. That's when they'd be told the day's price for a row of cut cane.
According to the workers' sworn accounts, for at least eight and often ten hours a day (the companies claim the average workday was just six hours), the workers would bend over and grab an armful of the freshly burnt cane, hack it off at the base with a machete, chop off the leaves, and stack the stalks in one pile and the waste in another. Cutters claimed they often had no more than five minutes to eat lunch. Sometimes they'd make only $15 for the day. Many of the men say they never knew the company was supposed to guarantee a minimum wage of $5.30 an hour.
"The sun hot, your clothes wet right through, and some guys get their fingers cut off clean," says Frazer, now 68 years old. "You have to work hard, really hard, to make $40 or $45." He says cutters who tried to organize protests were sent back to the islands.
Frazer and his fellow workers won their case the first time around in 1992, when a circuit court judge in Palm Beach County ruled that the contract clearly provided for a minimum row price that at least equaled the minimum hourly wage. The judge awarded them $51 million in back pay and interest. But a three-judge state appellate panel found that the contract was ambiguous and remanded the case for trial in 1995. Last year one of the defendants, U.S. Sugar Corp. of Clewiston, settled for $5.7 million, with $1 million going to the plaintiff's three attorneys. But the four other companies decided to keep fighting.
There's a long history of sugar being tied in with slavery, too -- the "Triangle Trade" of the 16 and 1700s was molasses (pressed & boiled sugar cane) converted to rum (distilled molasses) traded for slaves (who were then brought to the colonies to harvest more sugar).
Here's an excerpt from a book review dealing critically with our former president:
quote:. Ms Lewinsky's testimony referred to proceedings in the back room being interrupted one day when Clinton fled to take a call from a Mr Fanjul in Florida. Kenneth Starr saw this as an unimportant detail, but Mr Fanjul is one of America's leading, and richest, sugar growers. He has also been prosecuted for dumping phosphorous waste, maltreating black labourers, and contributes donations of half a million dollars to the Democrats. And his company receives $65 million a year in 'price supports', which ensure a virtual monopoly of the US sugar market.
Here's a Mother Jones editorial, dealing with the same phone call -- and why it was made.
And here's some real paydirt on the Fanjuls, the Cuban family (they hold Spanish passports) who own the sugar industry in Florida.
quote:excerpt: The Fanjuls' total giving has been consistently underreported because they give through an array of family members, companies, executives, and PACs. During the 1995-96 election cycle, members of the Fanjul family contributed $774,500 to federal campaigns. This total includes $135,500 in PAC money, $141,000 to candidates, and $498,000 in soft money from companies owned or controlled by the Fanjuls (see below). Add in $128,080 from the Fanjuls' closest advisers and senior executives and the Fanjuls' generosity totals $902,580.
It's an excellent investment. In return, a grateful Congress maintains a sugar price support program worth approximately $65 million annually to the Fanjuls.
And here's a
CNN piece: Why are these men smiling?
quote:excerpt:Since the Fanjuls control about one-third of Florida's sugar-cane production, that means they collect at least $60 million a year in subsidies, according to an analysis of General Accounting Office calculations. It's the sweetest of deals, and it's made the family, the proprietors of Casa de Campo, one of America's richest.
The subsidy has had one other consequence: it has helped create an environmental catastrophe in the Everglades. Depending on whom you talk to, it will cost anywhere from $3 billion to $8 billion to repair the Everglades by building new dikes, rerouting canals and digging new lakes.
Growers are committed to pay up to $240 million over 20 years for the cleanup. Which means the industry that created much of the problem will have to pay only a fraction of the cost to correct it. Government will pay the rest. As for the Fanjuls, a spokesman says they are committed to pay about $4.5 million a year.
How did this disaster happen? With your tax dollars. How will it be fixed? With your tax dollars. |
