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Michigan dairy farm housing: ‘Invisible’ workers suffer, state looks other way [1]
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Date: 2024-03
“Even my dog was scared of the noises (the rats made),” Esqueda, a 39-year-old originally from south Texas, told Bridge Michigan.
“I wish I had that picture of the very first one I killed. … This was a rat on a 2-by-4, and it sat, like a stuffed teddy bear.”
Related:
Unlike other agricultural living quarters, Esqueda’s house was never inspected by state or local officials. That’s because dairy laborers work year-round and are not considered migrant or seasonal workers, whose housing camps are supposed to be inspected annually by the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development under state law.
Michigan, like most other states, largely does not regulate dairy farm housing, which advocates say leaves an all-but-invisible workforce unprotected. A 2019 state report, written one year after two dairy workers died in a fire at farm housing in southwest Michigan, warned Michigan policymakers of the situation, but lawmakers made no effort to change laws.
No federal or state agency conducts routine inspections of dairy farm housing in Michigan. While municipalities can enforce building codes, that rarely happens with farm housing, according to code enforcement officials, researchers and farmworker advocates.
“If we ever want to live in a world where people are not beholden to the company for everything that happens in their life, we need to have safeguards,” said Martha Gonzalez-Cortes, former state director of the Office of Migrant Affairs and former community relations director at the Michigan Department of Civil Rights.
“We potentially have thousands of vulnerable people that are working and living in difficult conditions, and are victimized by their invisibility, as they are by the deficiencies of our regulatory universe.”
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[1] Url:
https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/michigan-dairy-farm-housing-invisible-workers-suffer-state-looks-other-way
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