The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "migrant workers" ...
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Minorities on the Move, Often Unpredictably
This article uses mapping software and census data to show new patterns in the movement of minority groups. A county by county analysis shows what motivates certain groups to move to certain places.
Tags: census; migration; migrant workers; maps
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Building Homes: Building Problems
"A yearlong investigation by the Orlando Sentinel and WESH-NewsChannel 2 into new-housing construction in the region uncovered a systemic lack of quality control by builders who are producing too many homes too fast, with not enough trained workers and inadequate oversight." The investigation consisted in a survey of new home construction in the state of Florida and the inspection of 406 homes built in 2001, that were randomly selected from the 18,000 new homes sold in Central Florida that year done by engineering students at the University of Central Florida. "The reporting attributed the cause to the construction of too many homes too quickly, by a poorly trained and supervised work force dominated by illegal migrants, with inadequate oversight by regulators."
Tags: building; homes; construction; Latino; Hispanic; immigrants; illegal; inspection; workers; migrants; Florida; subcontractors; Mexicans; engineering; homeowner; builder; CAR
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Silicon Valley's Dark Side
In this series, The San Jose Mercury News questioned the electronics industry about its "corporate responsibility by examining labor and environmental practices common in the global production and disposal of desktop PCs. Primarily reported in southern China, the series documented the life-cycle of the PC: from components assembled by young migrant women at contractor factories, where many work excessive overtime hours in violation of China's labor law, to unregulated computer recycling centers, where unprotected workers salvage hazardous electronic waste imported from the United States and other developing countries."
Tags: computers; China; corporate responsibility; PC; personal computer; components; migrant workers; labor law; environment
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Silence in the Fields
This article examines the effects of H-2A, a government program that "was designed to allow farmers to temporarily employ foreign workers during periods of labor shortage. In reality, farmers are increasingly using H-2A to permanently replace Americans workers with a captive labor force." Mother Jones finds that "the conditions are hardly hospitable - but those who speak out can be sent straight back home."
Tags: H-2A; government; migrant workers; farming; labor
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The Kingdom of Big Sugar
"After their father lost one of Cuba's great sugar fortunes to Castro's revolution, Alfy and Pepe Fanjul built a new empire in Florida, importing cheap Jamaican labor to do the brutal, dangerous work of sugarcane harvesting, and wielding ever more political power in Tallahassee and Washington, D.C., In 1989, outraged by what he calls "modern-day slavery,"a crusading 37-year-old lawyer named Edward Tuddenham took them to court, spawning four ongoing class-action suits on behalf of 20,000 former workers. Marie Brenner investigates an epic legal war that pits the Fanjuls' American Dream against the nightmare of migrant labor."
Tags: labor; worker's rights; agriculture; migrant workers; immigrant labor; rural legal aid; cane cutters; political donations; contract; Havana; Gomez-Mena; H-2 workers; Bygrave v. Okeelanta; appeal
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"Card-Carrying Victims"
For this investigation, a reporter went undercover as a farm laborer "amid allegations that farmers and crew leaders are requiring workers to obtain 'white cards' to work in the fields." The report focuses on a U.S. citizen who, like the reporter himself, was forced to pay money for identification proving his work eligibility and, some say, his race.
Tags: migrant workers
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Hog-Tied
The Progressive investigates meat-packing plants, specifically the pork assembly line, and migrant workers roles within these plants. The Progressive tells of the injuries sustained and the unsafe conditions in these assembly lines.
Tags: Cook; meat processing; pork assembly lines
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Children of the Harvest
Through the story of the Flores family, Dateline NBC's story "Children of the Harvest" explores the causes of a complex social problem: Why, sixty years after the passage of landmark child-labor legislation, are children still harvesting the food we eat? Rather than create villains and scapegoats, the story investigates the attitudes and actions of the child, the father, the farmer, the food processor and the government officials responsible for enforcing child labor laws.
Tags: TAPE; child-labor laws; migrant workers
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Children's sweat/Sudor infantil
KDTV-14 Univision investigates child labor among Mexican-American families. While working in the fields to provide money for their families, the children are abandoning their education.
Tags: TAPE; Migrant workers; Immigration Farms; Reform.
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Bordering on exploitation
New Times examines the maquiladora industry's explosive growth in the Arizona/Mexico border region. The stories found that as the peso continues to shed value, these low-wage American-owned, export-manufacturing plants have become a primary force behind the massive rural-to-urban migration of young Mexicans from the Sonoran and Sinaloan interior.