REPORT: Abuses in Maryland’s Crab Picking Industry

Continue to Threaten Workers during the Covid-19 Pandemic

 

Breaking the Shell: How Maryland’s Migrant Crab Pickers Continue to Be “Picked Apart,” examines the current conditions faced by migrant worker women as crab pickers on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The vast majority of these workers are Mexican women on temporary work visas tied to their employer who come to the United States seasonally from April to November every year

A followup to 2010’s Picked Apart: The Hidden Struggles of Migrant Worker Women in the Maryland Crab Industry, this new report reveals how H-2B guestworkers remain in a daily fight for their rights and dignity in an atmosphere still rife with gender-based abuse — even when they have been deemed ‘essential’ workers under the COVID-19 pandemic.