{"id":18254,"date":"2026-08-01T10:51:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T17:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/?p=18254"},"modified":"2026-08-01T10:51:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T17:51:17","slug":"the-diarrhea-lettuce-company-has-been-linked-to-forced-labor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/2026\/08\/01\/the-diarrhea-lettuce-company-has-been-linked-to-forced-labor\/","title":{"rendered":"The Diarrhea Lettuce Company Has Been Linked to Forced Labor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is overly dramatic, as I don’t have a problem with inmates getting paid less to do jobs as it gives them something to do and there are of course security expenses. The problem is when corrupt police and judges get involved in railroading and funneling in those slaves with unfair sentences, which has happened. But the interesting tidbit I’ve included this article for is that prison labor generated $11 billion in goods in 2022. And best to remember that the suspected problem lettuce came from Mexico, though Taylor Farms was heavily involved in lobbying to postpone new regulations<\/a> that would have helped track and manage this outbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/futurism.com\/science-energy\/diarrhea-lettuce-taylor-farms-prison-labor<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
Horrifying.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

By Joe Wilkins<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Benjamin Fanjoy \/ Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When the United States ratified the 13th amendment in 1865, federal lawmakers very nearly outlawed slavery for good \u2014 but not entirely. Tucked within arguably the most important corner of the US constitution is a massive caveat: \u201cneither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted<\/em>, shall exist within the United States\u201d (emphasis added.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 160-some years since that amendment, a quieter type of forced servitude has lived on in the US: prison labor. From the debt peonage<\/a> of the post-Civil War reconstruction era to the privatized contracting<\/a> of the 21st century, prison labor is a massive money maker, generating $11 billion<\/a> worth of goods in 2022 alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As horrifying a thought as it is, one of the companies still benefiting from the practice is in the news for another reason: spreading a gut-busting diarrhea parasite through mass-produced shredded lettuce in grocery stores and fast food outlets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It turns out that Taylor Farms, the agricultural company widely believed to be behind the cyclospora<\/em> outbreak<\/a> currently raging throughout the US, is also heavily involved in modern-day forced labor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reporting from 2023 that was resurfaced this week on social media<\/a>, the publication Prison Legal News<\/em> revealed<\/a> that Taylor Farms was contracting labor from the Arizona Department of Correction, Rehabilitation, and Reentry for the low, low price of just $4.75 an hour \u2014 far below the cost of a non-incarcerated worker the federal minimum wage. (And to be clear, that\u2019s not the hourly wage paid to the inmate, which is capped at $1.50<\/a> in Arizona.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taylor Farms is just one firm involved in the practice in Arizona. Others include Hickman\u2019s Egg Farms<\/a>, NatureSweet<\/a>, and Televerde<\/a>, each of which contracted labor from Arizona DCRR\u2019s for-profit arm, Arizona Correctional Industries. That company\u2019s job is basically to churn out bulk goods for the state of Arizona, like license plates, though it also makes quite a bit of money selling the labor-hours of incarcerated people to private companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Worse yet, some of those incarcerated workers may have been here as non-citizens \u2014 meaning it would be illegal to employ them in the same low-wage jobs if they weren\u2019t<\/em> being held in detention. As Prison Legal <\/em>noted at the time, at least 26 prisoners employed by these companies had been detained by ICE, meaning that outside of incarceration, hiring them would have been illegal. To put it bluntly: their status as prisoners was the only thing that made the arrangement legal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In all, the DCRR told Prison Legal<\/em> it had hired out 15,700 \u201cMexican nationals\u201d between 2008 and 2023, though couldn\u2019t say how many of those workers were undocumented immigrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Ruben Reyes, director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association told the publication at the time: \u201cI\u2019m venturing a guess that a large majority of the people who are labeled a Mexican national by [DCRR] are unauthorized to work here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Put into context, the revelation is a horrifying twist in an already nauseating story of corporate greed and deregulation. Though the institution of slavery may have been formally abolished, its legacy lives on \u2014 fully embraced by the for-profit companies pumping our food supply full of parasites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taylor Farms didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is overly dramatic, as I don’t have a problem with inmates getting paid less to do jobs as it gives them something to do and there are of course security expenses. The problem is when corrupt police and judges get involved in railroading and funneling in those slaves with unfair sentences, which has happened. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18254"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18255,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18254\/revisions\/18255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}