Mississippi Today
44 Delta employers fined $350,000 for racist wage and hiring practices, pay $505,000 in back wages
Labor Secretary Marty Walsh vowed a year ago to fight the racist wage and hiring practices alleged by Black farm workers regarding workplace abuse and exploitation in the Delta.
That promise resulted in a Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division investigation called Operation Delta Force, which released findings Wednesday into those allegations of wage theft and illegal displacement of local workers in favor of white workers from South Africa, a practice detailed by Mississippi Today.
Forty-four employers were found to have violated federal labor laws and were fined nearly $350,000 in civil penalties, according to the investigation. Additionally, about $505,000 in back wages has been recovered for 161 Delta workers.
The Black farm workers “were elated that finally their voices were heard, that finally they were getting the wages and they could go to work and see that they were valued as an employee,” said Audrey Hall, the division’s district director in Jackson.
Mississippi Today’s “Exploited” investigation found that at least five Delta farms paid their local workforce less than workers who came to Mississippi on foreign farm work permits called H-2A visas over the past few years.
Most of the farms recruited young, white South African workers, which farm owners said is in response to an aging local workforce population and a shortage of people to take those jobs.
The H-2A program mandates a premium hourly wage, which was $12.45 last year. Labor regulations order farms hiring the visa workers to offer jobs to local workers at that rate and not to pay current workers below it.
The workers’ experiences were detailed in a lawsuit against two Delta farms that was filed in 2021 and settled earlier this year.
The Wage and Hour Division took a look at the H-2A program and found employers violated requirements for multiple reasons, including when they showed preferential treatment, failed to pay the same rate of pay to local workers and failed to provide local workers bonus opportunities.
Juan Coria, the division’s Southeast regional administrator based in Atlanta, said the purpose of the H-2A program was to bring people if help was needed – not to replace local workers.
As a result of the investigation, some workers received raises that brought them up to the same rate that the H-2A workers are paid, Hall said, and more farms have come into compliance.
She said that extra money means a lot to Delta workers living in one of the poorest areas of the state. They no longer have to make choices between whether to buy groceries, medicine or pay for housing, Hall said.
The Wage and Hour Division plans to launch more investigations and increase outreach in the Delta.
Hall said the division’s role is to help vulnerable workers through education about issues such as contracts and wages. The division has a toll-free help line at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243.)
Coria said an immediate result of Operation Delta Force is that the division now has an investigator assigned to the Delta who is based in Greenville.
One of his goals is for these efforts to improve working conditions for future Black farm workers in the Delta and inform farms about their responsibilities in following federal labor laws.
“This will have a positive impact,” Coria said.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1997
Dec. 22, 1997
The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the conviction of white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers.
In the court’s 4–2 decision, Justice Mike Mills praised efforts “to squeeze justice out of the harm caused by a furtive explosion which erupted from dark bushes on a June night in Jackson, Mississippi.”
He wrote that Beckwith’s constitutional right to a speedy trial had not been denied. His “complicity with the Sovereignty Commission’s involvement in the prior trials contributed to the delay.”
The decision did more than ensure that Beckwith would stay behind bars. The conviction helped clear the way for other prosecutions of unpunished killings from the Civil Rights Era.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Medicaid expansion tracker approaches $1 billion loss for Mississippi
About the time people ring in the new year next week, the digital tracker on Mississippi Today’s homepage tabulating the amount of money the state is losing by not expanding Medicaid will hit $1 billion.
The state has lost $1 billion not since the start of the quickly departing 2024 but since the beginning of the state’s fiscal year on July 1.
Some who oppose Medicaid expansion say the digital tracker is flawed.
During an October news conference, when state Auditor Shad White unveiled details of his $2 million study seeking ways to cut state government spending, he said he did not look at Medicaid expansion as a method to save money or grow state revenue.
“I think that (Mississippi Today) calculator is wrong,” White said. “… I don’t think that takes into account how many people are going to be moved off the federal health care exchange where their health care is paid for fully by the federal government and moved onto Medicaid.”
White is not the only Mississippi politician who has expressed concern that if Medicaid expansion were enacted, thousands of people would lose their insurance on the exchange and be forced to enroll in Medicaid for health care coverage.
Mississippi Today’s projections used for the tracker are based on studies conducted by the Institutions of Higher Learning University Research Center. Granted, there are a lot of variables in the study that are inexact. It is impossible to say, for example, how many people will get sick and need health care, thus increasing the cost of Medicaid expansion. But is reasonable that the projections of the University Research Center are in the ballpark of being accurate and close to other studies conducted by health care experts.
White and others are correct that Mississippi Today’s calculator does not take into account money flowing into the state for people covered on the health care exchange. But that money does not go to the state; it goes to insurance companies that, granted, use that money to reimburse Mississippians for providing health care. But at least a portion of the money goes to out-of-state insurance companies as profits.
Both Medicaid expansion and the health care exchange are part of the Affordable Care Act. Under Medicaid expansion people earning up to $20,120 annually can sign up for Medicaid and the federal government will pay the bulk of the cost. Mississippi is one of 10 states that have not opted into Medicaid expansion.
People making more than $14,580 annually can garner private insurance through the health insurance exchanges, and people below certain income levels can receive help from the federal government in paying for that coverage.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, legislation championed and signed into law by President Joe Biden significantly increased the federal subsidies provided to people receiving insurance on the exchange. Those increased subsidies led to many Mississippians — desperate for health care — turning to the exchange for help.
White, state Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, Gov. Tate Reeves and others have expressed concern that those people would lose their private health insurance and be forced to sign up for Medicaid if lawmakers vote to expand Medicaid.
They are correct.
But they do not mention that the enhanced benefits authored by the Biden administration are scheduled to expire in December 2025 unless they are reenacted by Congress. The incoming Donald Trump administration has given no indication it will continue the enhanced subsidies.
As a matter of fact, the Trump administration, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is looking for ways to cut federal spending.
Some have speculated that Medicaid expansion also could be on Musk’s chopping block.
That is possible. But remember congressional action is required to continue the enhanced subsidies. On the flip side, congressional action would most likely be required to end or cut Medicaid expansion.
Would the multiple U.S. senators and House members in the red states that have expanded Medicaid vote to end a program that is providing health care to thousands of their constituents?
If Congress does not continue Biden’s enhanced subsidies, the rates for Mississippians on the exchange will increase on average about $500 per year, according to a study by KFF, a national health advocacy nonprofit. If that occurs, it is likely that many of the 280,000 Mississippians on the exchange will drop their coverage.
The result will be that Mississippi’s rate of uninsured — already one of the highest in the nation – will rise further, putting additional pressure on hospitals and other providers who will be treating patients who have no ability to pay.
In the meantime, the Mississippi Today counter that tracks the amount of money Mississippi is losing by not expanding Medicaid keeps ticking up.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1911
Dec. 21, 1911
Josh Gibson, the Negro League’s “Home Run King,” was born in Buena Vista, Georgia.
When the family’s farm suffered, they moved to Pittsburgh, and Gibson tried baseball at age 16. He eventually played for a semi-pro team in Pittsburgh and became known for his towering home runs.
He was watching the Homestead Grays play on July 25, 1930, when the catcher injured his hand. Team members called for Gibson, sitting in the stands, to join them. He was such a talented catcher that base runners were more reluctant to steal. He hit the baseball so hard and so far (580 feet once at Yankee Stadium) that he became the second-highest paid player in the Negro Leagues behind Satchel Paige, with both of them entering the National Baseball Hame of Fame.
The Hall estimated that Gibson hit nearly 800 homers in his 17-year career and had a lifetime batting average of .359. Gibson was portrayed in the 1996 TV movie, “Soul of the Game,” by Mykelti Williamson. Blair Underwood played Jackie Robinson, Delroy Lindo portrayed Satchel Paige, and Harvey Williams played “Cat” Mays, the father of the legendary Willie Mays.
Gibson has now been honored with a statue outside the Washington Nationals’ ballpark.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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