Harvesting Injustice: Workers’ Rights Abuses in American Agriculture and the Urgency for Fair Trade Solutions

Agricultural workers are subjected to various challenges in the workplace, including inequitable employment arrangements, dangerous working conditions, and low wages.Employers abuse their authority by using coercive labor practices and taking advantage of flawed laborer protection laws to maximize profits at the expense of laborers.This paper reviews the history of agricultural labor working conditions and prison labor laws to examine potential solutions to these injustices.In addition to providing a historical context on agricultural labor, this paper offers a multi-modal review of primary material, existing U.S. laws and domestic and foreign policy, current academic research, population statistics, and organizations seeking change regarding agricultural labor violations.Ultimately, through this review, this paper concludes with suggestive Fair Trade policy augmentations that can be used to improve working conditions and reduce abuses for agricultural laborers.