Series exposes conditions of aging mentally retarded workers

Clark Kauffman of the Des Moines Register follows up on the newspaper's initial, exclusive stories about mentally retarded processing plant workers who spent 40 years living in an aging Iowa bunkhouse run by a Texas labor broker. The latest installment, "The Last Bunkhouse," focuses on a licensed care facility on a rural Texas farm where some of the workers have spent their final days. The owner of this care facility once paid $40,000 to settle allegations that he forced his elderly, disabled residents to perform hard physical labor on his farm. One of the men collapsed and died after loading cattle feed into a truck. Video of the Texas bunkhouse, and all of the newspaper's coverage of the issue, can be found at www.desmoinesregister.com/atalissa.