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Malia Politzer is the executive editor of piqd.com, and an award-winning long-form journalist based out of Spain. She specializes in reporting on migration, international development, human rights issues and investigative reporting.
Originally from California, she's lived in China, Spain, Mexico and India, and reported from various countries in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Her primary beats relate to immigration, economics and international development. She has published articles in Huffington Post Highline, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue India, Mint, Far Eastern Economic Review, Foreign Policy, Reason Magazine, and the Phoenix New Times. She is also a regular contributor to Devex.
Her Huffington Post Highline series, "The 21st Century Gold Rush" won awards from the National Association of Magazine Editors, Overseas Press Club, and American Society of Newspaper Editors. She's also won multiple awards for feature writing in India and the United States.
Her reporting has been supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, The Institute For Current World Affairs, and the Global Migration Grant.
Degrees include a BA from Hampshire College and MS from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where was a Stabile Fellow at the Center for Investigative Journalism.
'The Jungle' Returns: How Case Chicken Is Using Immigration Laws To Exploit Its Undocumented Workers
Channeling Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, ProPublica reporter Michael Grabell takes a long, unflinching look at Case Chicken's abuse of undocumented immigrants in the company's many meatpacking and poultry processing plants across the country.
Since the early 80s, Case Chicken - a major supplier of chicken to fast food giants that include KFC, Popeye's and Taco Bell - has been recruiting undocumented immigrants to work in one of the most dangerous industries in the US. Opening with the graphic story of a worker who's leg was literally ripped off in an onsite accident - and who was promptly subsequently fired, and received no financial support for medical care - Grabell documents in meticulous detail how Case Chicken regularly violates labor laws: from workers who wear diapers on the production line due to infrequent bathroom breaks, to discouraging laborers with carpel tunnel from making medical visits until their conditions were untreatable, then firing them because they "couldn't do their jobs". When workers attempted a strike in protest, they were summarily fired and charged with "trespassing".
What's worse, the company faced paltry consequences for such abuse - little more than fines and a slap on the wrist - while undocumented workers risk deportation; one of the reasons the population is so easy to exploit.
“It’s an industry that targets the most vulnerable group of workers and brings them in,” Debbie Berkowitz, OSHA’s former senior policy adviser, said to Grabell. “And when one group gets too powerful and stands up for their rights they figure out who’s even more vulnerable and move them in.”
