Workers’ Rights and theLanguage of Slavery:
Trafficked and Immigrant Workers in the 21st Century
Maria L. OntiverosUniversity of San Francisco
School of Law
Goals of Project
* To see how advocacy groups, journalists and others in mainstream society are using the language or rhetoric of slavery to describe workers’ issues or fight for their rights
* To analyze what this tells us about popular conceptions of slavery and the Thirteenth Amendment
* To explore links between this advocacy and legal advocacy.
Methodology• Searched non-legal, non-academic online resources (no
cases, law review articles or academic journals)- press releases, newspaper articles, blogs
• Searched for literal language (“slave” and “slavery”); figurative language which a reasonably educated audience would recognize as symbolic markers of slavery (plantation, Jim Crow); and connected language (“trafficking”)
• Looked for breadth, rather than depth (stopped at 25 references per topic). Representative sample, not comprehensive.
• Searched for images in bing using similar terms
Initial Findings (90 data points)• Four recurring phrases:
Slave/Slavery Modern Day Slavery Plantation Jim Crow/Juan Crow
• Six Employment Categories:Trafficking 38% Prison 14%Immigrants, Immigrant or Guest Workers 24%Sports 13% Unpaid Interns 9%Other – adjunct prof., coal miners, etc. 1%
Mapping Language with/against Employment Categories
• Slave/Slavery/Modern Day Slavery occurred with all the employment categories
• Plantation occurred with sports, prison and immigrants, immigrant & guest workers
• Jim Crow matched prison labor• Juan Crow matched immigrant issues
Mapping Employment Categories with/against Language
• Trafficking uses slave, slavery, modern day slavery
• Unpaid interns use slave, slavery• Immigrants, immigrant workers, guest
workers utilize the entire gamut• Prisons also utilize all the various
language
Trafficking: the 13th Amendment through the Lens of Labor
• U.S. government focuses on labor plus coercion
• Seen as private, criminal arrangements
Immigrant Workers: The Thirteenth Amendment through
the Lens of Class
• Jim Crow and Juan Crow reflect state-sponsored systems; Plantation reflects private systems, supported by state
• Advocates look at context, history, race and labor
• Seen as systemic problem involving government action