Florida Farmworkers
April 1st, 2005 | Published in Local Data, Paper Trail
Melissa Griggs of the Daytona Beach News-Journal spent four months investigating the living and working conditions of migrant farmworkers, finding that “federal officials have not inspected farmworker housing in Volusia County in the past five years, even though a federal appellate court ruled in 1993 that fern cutters should be protected under a federal migrant housing law.” The chairman of the Pierson Town Council “has been cited for persistent violations of state law during the past 15 years. His mobile homes, rented to farmworkers and inspected under the less-stringent state law governing all mobile home parks, have been cited for infractions ranging from raw sewage flowing around the mobile homes and exposed electrical wires to roach infestations.” No fine has ever been paid.