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Originally Posted by Supple Cow
Besides, most of the working conditions stuff has been addressed with laws passed in the last few decades, no?
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No. There are many low-paying industrial and canning/foodpacking employers, some large but many smaller, who employ new immigrants or legal/illegal aliens. Because the immigrants are 1) not well educated, especially in their rights and how to obtain them, and 2) are afraid to complain because they fear they may endanger their status here, they put up with many terrible and illegal working conditions.
And that doesn't even count the people working completely off the books as casual labor for whatever reason (illegal alien, criminal record/on the run, etc.). Within a half mile of where I live is a large street-corner casual labor market where over 100 workers (most latino, some caucasian) wait every day for contractors to hire them for $7-$10 an hour. They go off in pickups and often work under terrible conditions. If they're injured, the contractor usually drops them at a drop-in medical clinic with $75 and is never seen again. There's another market like it just five miles away.
Yes, the laws are the on the books. And for the least fortunate among us, they are meaningless.