Book Review: ‘Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor And the Dark Side of the New Global Economy’

“With each new detail, an increasingly disturbing picture of Ramos’s operation began to emerge. El Diablo, it seemed, had been lending money to his workers, then overcharging them for substandard “barracks-style” housing, gouging them with miscellaneous fees, and encouraging them to shop at a high-priced grocery store, conveniently owned by his wife. By the time El Diablo had deducted for this, that, and the other thing, workers said, they were barely breaking even.

Worse, they were trapped. El Diablo’s labor camp was in a tiny, isolated country town. He and his family, a network of cousins and in-laws, many of whom also worked as labor contractors, patrolled the area in their massive Ford F-250 pickup trucks, communicating with one another through Nextel walkie-talkie phones. For foreigners unfamiliar with the area, escape was almost unthinkable. But just to make matters crystal clear, El Diablo told his workers that anyone indebted caught trying to run away would be killed.

The previous night’s murder, the witnesses alleged, had taken place when an indebted employee had left. The murder was meant to send a signal to local workers and to chofers thinking about aiding their departure from El Diablo’s territory.”

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