Reader: Wildcat Dairy raid proves that dirt-cheap illegal labor can be milked for profit
Department of Homeland Security agents, along with members of the Morgan County Sheriff's Office, raided Wildcat Dairy yesterday -- and found that 89 percent of the workers there were not authorized to be in the U.S. But so far, only the employees are being punished -- not the employer.
According to the Sheriff's Office, a "routine inspection" of the dairy, located at 24268 Morgan County Road 21, by the DHS turned up twenty workers suspected of using forged social security and alien-registration cards to get a job. All twenty have now been indicted on charges that include criminal impersonation, while the sheriff notes that "the management of Wildcat Dairy cooperated with the arrest operations."...
Michael Roberts reported the story of the Wildcat Dairy raid on the Latest Word, our news blog, yesterday, but the topic is also worth contemplating on Cafe Society.
Here's the take from Matt:
Does nobody else bother to question how exactly a gallon of milk at King Soopers costs half as much as a gallon of unleaded at the gas station in their parking lot? It's hard to turn a profit AND qualify for any "best places to work" list in the Dairy biz. The fact is that the vast majority of our commercially-available foods have to be produced at the lowest possible cost just to remain competitive in this era of cheap foods. Technological advancements can make certain improvements in food production, but nothing's cheaper than good old fashioned dirt-cheap human labor.
Should the employers who hire "dirt-cheap" illegal workers -- at dairies, in restaurants -- be held accountable, too? And how much would you pay for a gallon of milk produced by legal workers?
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