it takes a special individual to go out there and spend months at a time in, in a little camp trailer and watch sheep, the isolation is somethin that Americans are not used to, most of these guys come here.

They want to work, they're happy to work.

they think they're making a grand amount of money.

In my opinion they're making dang good money.

Probably go hom with more money in their pocket than I do at the end of the day, that's for sure.

Our outfit treats these guys as best as we possibly can.

I bring them grocerie just about whatever they want, you know, whatever they need, we take care of them.

the houses that they live in are inspected, you know, they're little trailer houses or little camp wagons, depending on how you go.

But they're inspecte and they're not like you were.

I would be used to, you know, World Travel trailer where you've got air conditioning and that type of thing.

Most of them are fairly comfortable.

These guys get along fine.

The regulations and the rules are put in place to ensure that these guys are treated fairly.

sheepherders tend to come to us and contact us because they're in need of information about their rights.

They're not sure wha their employers doing is legal.

my name is Jennifer Rodriguez.

I'm the managing attorney for the farmworker rights division here at Colorado Legal Services.

probably about 30% of our cases involve sheepherders.

So it is pretty disproportionate compared to the number of other ag workers.

this case right here plaintiffs had alleged that they had been forced to work under long hours, under harsh conditions and at times without sufficient food, and they had their immigration documents withheld.

They're prohibited from, Having visitors.

sheepherders are so extremely isolated and 100% dependent on their employer for everything for food, water, access to medical care, obviously depends on the employer, but there's just a lot of room for exploitation given, how scattered and how isolated they are.

The ranchers that I know, and there's have bee a few bad apples that I've heard about that don't treat these guys very well, but they don't last very long.

You know, these guys, if they don't treat them well, they probably should leave.

I don't know, if you want to leave, leave.

What does that mean?

That means like walking miles and miles until you can flag dow a truck driver or an oil rig or, hunter or somebody to take you into town and find help we spent a lot of time talking to workers, explainin what their rights are in them, telling us that their employer is not complying with any of those.

And then we explained to them what their options are.

And nine times out of ten they'll say, okay, thank you, but not going to do anything about it because they need to come back next year.