A couple of days ago, as I was passing by the university Rec Center, I caught sight of a guy who was carrying two buckets full of something down the sidewalk of the Rec Center. Then, he approached a person, who gave him a handful of coins, and happily, the first guy went away.
This is quite an unusual scene I have come across in four years of my stay here. As I looked around, I noticed some guys were holding up a poster to attract people. But I was attracted by the slogan written on their T-shirts, which read "Exploitation King". Feeling curious, I took a few steps towards the poster to read through its contents. It was labelled as Young Democratic Socialists, from which I gathered that these guys are members of this party, and they were protesting against the food-shop chain Burger King.
Reading through some more posters in and around the place, I came to know about the reason of their protest. They were in favor of those farm workers in Florida, who earn 40-45 cents for every 32-pound buckets of tomatoes they pick, and to earn a descent amount of money, they are bound to pick nearly 2 tons of tomatoes! These workers have appealed to Burger King for a 1-cent per pound rise, which the BK refused. The Democratic Socialists are in support of these workers, and they have named this event as "Fast Food Slavery". The act which the guy performed in carrying the buckets was a way of protesting against the oppression and exploitation of the giant food corporations.
As usual, the Republicans are in complete disagreement with the Democratic Socialists. According to their view, if the fast food corporation like McDonalds', Burger King, Taco Bell etc agree to pay the farmers what they are demanding, then the "dollar menu" available in these shops will cost nearly 3 or 4 dollars, which would not be cheap anymore for the students. Hence, they support the corporations, and are not in favor of the wage-hike.
The entire story is really interesting. Coming back to my office, I browsed through the internet to learn some more about this aspect. The university newspaper also provided some valuable information. All the information had one thing in common: these firm workers are being treated very badly, besides paying them a bare minimum amount for their labor. I also learnt that an indictment has been issued against a farm labor corporation located a few hundred miles from Miami. It stated that the workers in that farm were locked in trucks and godowns, beaten up and were forced to work against their will. In various newspaper articles, the lives of the farm workers have been compared with the miseries of the slaves, an inhuman practice which was supposed to be nonexistent in the modern world. But it is still there, and the irony is, it is prevalent in a country which is regarded as a supreme power in the world, the country which control the fates of numerous third-world countries.
It is still unsure whether the corporations will raise the wage, or whether the living conditions of the farm workers will improve or not. But the striking fact which is obvious from this incident is that the poor people are bound to live a life in subhuman standards, irrespective of the geographical boundaries in which they belong, which we term as "countries", and label them as First World, Second World and Third World, a cunning way to hide the failure of the leaders and statesmen, and to project a wrong picture in front of the outside world.
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