Their labor benefits us — it’s time we stand up for them
Re: “Unenforced Labor,” Sept. 1 Denver Post special report
Thank you for this timely report on how we get our food here in Colorado. Congratulations to the newspaper and especially to Sam Tabachnik and the team. This series is why good investigative journalism is so important and why we continue to subscribe to The Post.
We need to know the conditions under which we get our food. These workers are our neighbors and deserve decent wages, living conditions, and a clean, safe working environment, as well as respect and dignity.
We were glad to read about the Fair Food Program and hope that more growers will participate in it. We wonder how much Kroger, Safeway, and Sprouts inquire into the conditions under which their suppliers treat their workers.
Patricia Gilman, Denver
This Labor Day weekend I was reminded of why I had read The Post. If I needed my daily fix of political trash talk, I could find it, but more importantly, I learned a lot about issues that affect the decisions I make every week, especially how I spend my money.
I am one of those people who, in the 70s, boycotted table grapes and orange juice. More recently I have advocated for buying locally sourced products. I know that, inadvertently, I have purchased products that are produced under sweatshop /slave labor conditions, and I count on good journalism to inform me so that I can avoid doing so as much as possible in the future. I was sad to hear that I have purchased meat and produce from Colorado suppliers that have been abusive of their workers and I appreciate The Post not only calling them out but also highlighting farmers and ranchers who are humane in their treatment of workers. I applaud The Post and local grocers who help me purchase from food providers that align with my values.
l am privileged to live a relatively “rich” quality of life and I know that it is made possible by the hard work of so many workers who are otherwise invisible. Thanks for telling their story.
A. Lynn Buschhoff, Denver
Kudos to Sam Tabachnik for his investigative reporting regarding the H-2A visa workers brought to the United States for agricultural work and who are subsequently abused by one in six employers who do not comply with federal and state laws and regulations designed to protect them.
I understand the need for farmers to make a decent living and how they are caught between the costs of doing business versus the cost of food. I am alarmed that the average age of a farmer today is 57.5 years and that younger people are not keen to take on farming.
Some experts suggest that the rate of obesity in the United States comes from cheap food. We also know it comes from highly processed foods containing excessive fat, sugar and salt.
Perhaps it’s time we took more responsibility for how we spend our money so that others have our same opportunities. Sure, no one wants to see costs go up at the grocery store. However, this is the only way that farmers might increase their income so that the temptation to treat their employees poorly is eliminated. We need to care for all, not just ourselves.
Mariann Storck, Wheat Ridge
Hunting, slaughterhouses and doing the right thing
Re: “Ballot measures pit the Front Range against rural,” Sept. 1 commentary
I was dismayed to read Krista Kafer’s piece playing Coloradans against each other, urban vs. rural. As I understand it, her reasoning is that this is why rural residents feel unheard and forgotten by the rest of us. I think it’s more that we are looking at longer-range or more basic issues rather than leaving anyone out.
How is trophy hunting of mountain lions and bobcats a proud rural heritage? I haven’t heard that and this seems like unnecessary cruelty to anyone with a heart, rural or urban. The elimination of the lamb slaughterhouse in Denver’s Globeville neighborhood would open up the land for a mixed-use community center to be built by 2040 and a paid pathway to better jobs for the workers who are tasked with degrading and gruesome work.
This is a win for Globeville and a win for workers. As for the affected ranchers, I would call upon them to have a heart too. Lambs are baby animals. Do we have to eat lambs? These are issues that we should tackle together for the sake of morality and the health of the planet. Dividing us is not the answer.
Beverly Bennett, Aurora
As a cattle rancher in Northern California, I found Krista Kafer’s commentary about an initiative to close the slaughterhouse moving.
This initiative is sheer foolishness. If a slaughterhouse in Denver shuts down, ranchers will be forced to truck their animals farther, increasing their carbon footprint and wasting energy. Some will go out of business, and we will import meat from other countries, none of which have the environmental laws and humane treatment of animals we have, not to mention energy sources as clean as ours.
This initiative will help big corporate ag whose major concern is its shareholders. Small family businesses that care about their animals and are proud of the quality of their meat will go out of business as more processed, chemical-filled meat, over which we have no quality control, floods our country via imports. Meat will not be phased out in favor of vegetables. There will be a demand for meat and it will come from less safe sources.
We need more small slaughterhouses all over the country and more USDA meat inspectors, especially in the West, where slaughterhouses are few and far between compared to the East. Ranchers wouldn’t have to truck their animals so far; people could eat local food that is safe to eat.
Do we care about our health and the health of our neighbors? Do we care about the environment? Do we care about the economy? If so, then do not vote for this initiative.
Ann Marie Bauer, Covelo, Calif.
Rural residents of Colorado care about ethics in hunting.
I’m a 64-year-old wildlife advocate who has lived on Deer Mesa just outside of Norwood for the past 36 years and have longed to see the end of the needless suffering of innocent wildlife.
As a rural resident, it makes good sense to vote “yes” on Initiative 91 to protect mountain lions and bobcats from needless suffering done by trophy hunting and to stop trapping our bobcats just to make fur coats. I am not alone and other rural Coloradans are on board with this one.
There is not one acceptable reason or justifiable excuse for killing any lion or bobcat that is in nature, in their home, and not causing any trouble to us, or to our animals. We need to stop killing them for trophies and skinning them to make fur coats in China.
This kind of activity is not even close to resembling deer hunting. We don’t chase deer with dogs wearing tracking collars, just so some head-hunter paying an outfitter $8,000 can walk up and shoot an animal stuck in the trees.
This issue is most closely related to what the citizens did to protect bears from baiting and hounding years ago with a ballot measure. It makes sense to have some measure of ethical standards, and trophy hunting crosses that line.
Ruthie McCain, Norwood
Safeguards of 1974 no longer exist
Re: “America survived Watergate and it’ll survive the November election too,” Sept. 1 commentary
Jim Prochnow’s guest commentary in the Sunday Denver Post is incredibly naive if he actually thinks that Nixon/Watergate is comparable to what is at risk in November’s election. In 1974, we still had a Republican Party and a Supreme Court that cared about preserving our democracy, the Constitution of the United States, and the Rule of Law. That is not the case now.
The current Republican Party’s main tenet is greed, and it has shown it will do anything to maintain power to feed that greed. Likewise, the current Supreme Court has abandoned its oath to preserve and protect the Constitution and has replaced it with the justices’ own personal ideologies, as evidenced by their ruling on executive privilege, as well as several other recent opinions.
We no longer have the safeguards that saved us in 1974. And it’s foolish to think that we do.
Carla LaRosa, Aurora
I can only imagine the tremendous pressure Jim Prochnow was under as part of President Richard Nixon’s legal team. As for myself, I remember that time, but it had a different feel than what we, as a nation, are experiencing now. Perhaps my experience was influenced by the fact that I was a young man concerned with my job and raising a family.
I recall the term “Constitutional Crisis” being talked about, but thankfully, it never materialized. That was, in large part, due to Nixon’s party and leadership convincing him to step down.
Such is not the case today. We have a former president who attempted to subvert the Constitution and steal the 2020 election. He is supported by nearly 50% of the population and by sycophants (i.e. Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, JD Vance, etc.) who have traded their integrity for support of his base. The mere fact that this man is a candidate for president shows how far our country’s moral compass has declined since 1974.
I pray that Prochow is correct and that we survive this election. If the former president is re-elected, can our country “survive” further assaults on the Constitution by him and his allies on the Supreme Court?
David Busch, Centennial
Gender not a requirement for honor, etc.
Re: “Manhood is on the ballot, as if politics were not crazy enough,” Sept. 4 commentary
“Honor, courage, leadership, honesty, integrity and fairness are just a few of the qualities we should associate with positive manhood,” writes columnist Clarence Page.
I would suggest these are also qualities we should simply associate with positive personhood — male or female.
David L. Stevenson, Denver
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