For years, fans attending Tampa Bay Buccaneers games at Raymond James Stadium have bought beer, hot dogs, and other food items from vendors supplied by New Beginnings, a local shelter housing many drug and alcohol-addicted residents. The workers, however, aren't paid directly for their work. Instead, their wages go to New Beginnings, which in turn provide them with free food and a place to live.

To New Beginnings CEO Tom Atchison, the arrangement with the Buccaneers is a social good, and part of the residents' "work therapy." But labor advocates think a different word, one once relegated to middle-school history textbooks, is more apt: indentured servitude. And that—according to a long investigation in the Tampa Bay Times published on Sunday—may not be legal.

The Buccaneers are not the only organization to use New Beginnings residents. The city's other two professional sports franchises—baseball's Rays and the NHL's Lightning—have also employed the workers as vendors, as has the Daytona 500 auto race and the Florida state fair. In addition, Atchison has assigned workers to jobs in construction, landscaping, and even in grant writing, according to the Times report. Former residents have accused New Beginnings of confiscating Social Security checks and food stamps in addition to wages, a charge Atchison denies.