Los Angeles Port Truckers Forced Into Indentured Servitude, Investigation Finds

Published June 22, 2017 at 1:40 PM EDT

Trucks wait to be loaded at the Port of Los Angeles in 2012. (Nick Ut/AP)

The shipping containers that come through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach every year would wrap around the Earth two times if you laid them out end-to-end. Those containers are filled with electronics and clothing that are manufactured in places like Asia and then shipped to U.S. retailers.

But there is a dark side to the industry, according to an investigation by the USA Today Network: The drivers who bring those products to nearby rail yards or warehouses are signing lease-to-own contracts for their trucks that condemn them to modern-day indentured servitude.

Here & Now‘s Peter O’Dowd speaks with the reporter who wrote the investigation, Brett Murphy (@BrettMmurphy).