THE WEEKLY REVEAL
Saturday, Nov. 26, 2022
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Hello! In this issue:
- We found grim conditions for sugarcane cutters and their families in the Dominican Republic. Now, the U.S. government has taken action.
- It’s holiday shopping season, and we’re revisiting Amazon’s safety record.
- A look at our After Ayotzinapa event in San Francisco.
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NEW
US Bans Sugar Imports From Top Dominican Producer Over Forced Labor Allegations
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A Central Romana Corp. worker prepares a field for an upcoming sugar crop in La Romana, Dominican Republic. Credit: Pedro Farias-Nardi
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The United States on Wednesday blocked shipments of raw sugar from Central Romana Corp., a top sugar producer in the Dominican Republic, after a federal investigation found indications of labor abuse among cane cutters employed and housed by the company.
- Central Romana’s plantation shipped more than 295 million pounds of raw sugar from the Dominican Republic to the U.S. last year.
- Sugar from the company’s cane fields feeds into the supply chains of major U.S. brands, including Domino and the Hershey Co.
This action follows a two-year investigation by Reveal and Mother Jones that sparked criticism of the Dominican sugar industry from Democratic lawmakers in Washington. The investigation, released in September 2021, found that cane cutters and their families lived in ramshackle company housing, often with no electricity or running water. In more than 50 interviews, workers spoke of inadequate protective gear, poor medical care, low pay, chronic debt and intimidation by the company’s armed security force.
Thousands of men who harvest sugarcane for Central Romana are Haitian citizens or of Haitian descent, and many do not have legal status in the Dominican Republic. Unable to collect long-overdue pensions, some workers said they were forced to cut cane into their 80s.
“Manufacturers like Central Romana, who fail to abide by our laws, will face consequences as we root out these inhumane practices from U.S. supply chains,” AnnMarie R. Highsmith, executive assistant commissioner at U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Trade, said in a press release.
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THIS WEEK’S PODCAST
A Reckoning at Amazon
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After years of growth, Amazon is now laying off thousands of employees. But with the holiday season underway, the company’s warehouse workers still have to race to fill gift orders.
This week on Reveal, we revisit Amazon’s safety record.
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🎧 Other places to listen: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
DID YOU KNOW?
We’re experimenting with bringing past podcast episodes to our YouTube channel. If you’re an avid podcast listener on YouTube, find us at @reveal.
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SUPPORT JOURNALISM THAT PERSEVERES
We’ve devoted nearly four years to pulling back the curtain on Amazon’s wrongdoing. But to continue to do that kind of work, we must rely on the generosity of our listeners, readers and viewers to fund this work.
Please donate today to support journalism that perseveres.
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Reveal’s Anayansi Diaz-Cortes and Kate Doyle from the National Security Archive, lead reporters in our After Ayotzinapa series, discussed their investigation into the case of the 2014 kidnapping and disappearance of 43 Mexican students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College during an event last month in San Francisco. They were joined by family members of the disappeared students and the former special prosecutor in the case, Omar Gómez Trejo.
El Tecolote has a full recap of the event here and a gallery of photos can be seen on Instagram here.
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Journalists! The federal government has a trove of data about workplace injuries, but it kept that information secret for years. So we sued, and the government finally released the data – but it didn’t make it easy to use.
That’s why we built the Corporate Injury Tracker: an interactive database where we’ve done all the hard work for you. You’ll be able to look up injury rates and companies and their individual locations, and filter by state, county and industry.
Join the Reveal Reporting Network on Dec. 1 at 2 p.m. ET/11 a.m. PT for a preview. Our team will show you how to use the database and generate story ideas in time for the holiday shopping rush. Register to attend.
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🗓️ Save the date for our virtual democracy event. Join us Dec. 8 at 3 p.m. ET/noon PT as we take you inside our newsroom’s democracy coverage, past and present, in a conversation led by our CEO, Robert "Rosey" Rosenthal, and several Reveal reporters and editors. Registration opens next week. Stay tuned.
⚖️ The case for a federal anti-SLAPP statute. You may remember that Planet Aid paid $1.9 million in October to settle a six-year libel lawsuit it filed against us. It’s the largest-ever settlement of a fees dispute under California’s anti-SLAPP statute. This month in the Columbia Journalism Review, our general counsel, Victoria Baranetsky, and CEO, Robert "Rosey" Rosenthal, dig into how newsrooms and journalists are vulnerable to lawsuits without a federal anti-SLAPP statute that protects freedom of speech nationwide. Read more.
📽️ Last chance to watch “The Grab” online. Our new feature film documentary tracks our yearslong investigation into the shadowy international scramble to buy up food and water supplies via covert land grabs. DOC NYC has tickets available to screen the film online through Sunday. Buy your ticket now.
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This issue of The Weekly Reveal was written by Kassie Navarro, edited by Kate Howard and copy edited by Nikki Frick. If you enjoyed this issue, forward it to a friend. Have some thoughts? Drop us a line with feedback or ideas!
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