amna: Sugar is in many of the
foods we eat every day, and
that's not by accident.
The multi-billion dollar sugar
industry is the subject of a new
podcast from iheartmedia and
imagine entertainment.
Stephanie sy has more.
Stephanie: The U.S. Is the fifth
largest sugar producer in the
world, with more than 20 states
supporting the industry.
The average American consumes
more than 100 pounds of sugar in
a year, according to the usda.
More than citizens of any other
country.
And there is broad scientific
consensus that too much sugar
contributes to diseases,
including type two diabetes,
heart disease, and fatty liver
disease.
Celeste Headlee is host of the
podcast "Big sugar," and she
joins me now to talk about the
industry's political power and
the impact that's had on workers
and public health.
Celeste, thank you so much for
joining the "Newshour."
So, I understand the idea of
your podcast came from previous
reporting starting in the 1980's
from Alec Wilkinson, who wrote
the book "Big sugar," and Marie
Brenner, who in 2001 wrote an
article in vanity fair.
Why did you want to look at this
issue again now?
Celeste: Well, because many of
the issues that they were
looking at in terms of immigrant
labor, Visas, health care, the
environment, they're still
relevant today, as well as the
power that corporations S D the
people who are behind those
corporations have over our
politics.
So, especially as the farm bill
is up -- as it rarely is, it's
up for reconsideration again,
it's only up for reconsideration
every five years.
We felt it was time.
Stephanie: And of course, the
farm bill would include a
package of subsidies, including
a sugar program.
Let's get back to this question
of migrant labor that the sugar
industry had to contend with in
the 1970's and 1980's.
I want to play a clip from your
podcast where an attorney for
the workers talks about the
dangers of the job.
>> You're swinging a machete
eight or 10 hours a day.
It's going to slip or you're
going to be careless or the
field will be uneven or any
number of things that will cause
you to accidentally cut
yourself.
Every year it was about a one
third of the workers were
injured at work in a manner
serious enough that it required
them to miss at least one day of
work.
That's an awfully high
percentage of the workforce to
be injured during a year.
Stephanie: So, Celeste, that
lawyer, Greg shell, files a
lawsuit on behalf of the workers
saying they're underpaid.
What changed as a result of that
and other lawsuits?
Celeste: Well, they ended up
filing a class action lawsuit on
behalf of a large number of
these workers, and they
discovered some incredible
things.
At one point, they got a former
U.S. Sugar worker who gave them
some details showing that these
workers had been underpaid to
the tune of tens of thousands of
dollars.
In fact, they had documents
showing that the companies had
budgeted only $3 per ton when in
fact, they should have been
budgeting over $5 per ton if
they were paying what the U.S.
Government had said that they
had to pay.
So, they had what seemed to have
been a pretty tight case.
What ended up happening was that
a number of the sugar companies
settled.
One of the sugar companies owned
by a couple of brothers from
Cuba who had fled the Castro
regime did not.
They kept it in court for years
and years and years and years.
They ended up losing that case
because of a centuries-old law,
and they ultimately mechanized
the fields.
That's sort of the core of what
this story is about.
But it involves so much drama
and intrigue.
And ultimately, these poor
workers, they were just out tens
of thousands of dollars.
And it's the kind of money that
really could have transformed
their lives.
Stephanie: So, justice was not
fully served even after the
settlements, it sounds like.
I wonder if you see a connection
between the ways migrant workers
were treated in the sugar cane
fields and the sugar beet fields
and the ways migrant workers are
treated today.
Celeste: Although most of the
sugar that is farmed in the
United States is mechanized,
it's still harvested by hands in
many areas of the United States
today.
And what's more, we are still
subsidizing the growing of sugar
to the tune of billions of
dollars through that farm bill
that we talked about before.
In other words, we are paying
growers millions of dollars to
grow sugar, and as consumers,
we're paying more for our sugar
when we get to the grocery store
than almost any other nation is.
So our sugar is expensive in a
number of different ways, and
it's expensive in terms of labor
itself.
So, it's a type of issue that is
costly and it's also costly to
environment.
I mean, it's just -- there's
layers upon layers to the story.
Stephanie: For its part, the
American sugar alliance,
Celeste, says your podcast
presents a, quote, antiquated
and inaccurate picture of the
sugar industry from the 1980's.
They say planting and harvesting
is now mechanized and workers
are unionized.
Do you think they've rectified
the big problems?
Celeste: I stand by our
journalism.
They are correct that quite a
bit of our storytelling begins
in the 1980's with the class
action lawsuit that we were
talking about.
You know, this is an
investigative story, and so we
begin in the 1980's, but we
bring it all the way forward to
the present.
And like I said, we were very
careful in our fact-checking and
the journalism.
And I stand by it.
It is very carefully done.
And you can rely on the facts
that you get.
Stephanie: Celeste Headlee, host
of "Big sugar."
Thanks so much, Celeste.
Celeste: My pleasure.
♪♪