Farm Workers Call on Trader Joe’s to Join Fair Food Program
Ja-Rei Wang, a fellow in the AFL-CIO Public Affairs Department, sends us this report about a protest at Trader Joe’s in Washington, D.C.
Several dozen students, activists, farm workers, musicians and community members came together yesterday outside of the Trader Joe’s in downtown Washington, D.C., to demand the supermarket chain stop supporting exploitation of farm workers and, instead, help build a food system that respects workers’ rights. The protest was one of the first such actions across the Northeast.
Chanting to the beat of live san jarocho music and marching with tomato-shaped posters, protestors called on Trader Joe’s to join the other companies that have signed onto the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ (CIW) Fair Food program, which calls for a penny-per-pound premium on tomatoes, fairer wages and a strict code of conduct for better working conditions.
The protestors delivered a letter to store management urging them to join the effort to provide a better life for the workers who supply their tomatoes.
Training is Sign of Better Day in Tomato Fields
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“It’s like a time machine has suddenly whisked us from a Charles Dickens workhouse to an auto plant in the 21st century. The difference in attitude is that great.” That’s how one tomato worker, a member of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), reacted to a new training session for employees of Pacific Tomato Growers.
In the training, the first-ever of its kind, workers who pick tomatoes learned they are entitled to a minimum wage and breaks, what constitutes a full bucket of tomatoes and what to do if they have a complaint.
Tomato Workers, Growers Sign Historic Agreement
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After more than 15 years of struggle, justice may be just around the corner in the Florida tomato fields. In what workers call a “watershed moment,” the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) and the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange (FTGE) yesterday signed an agreement that will extend the CIW’s Fair Food principles to more than 90 percent of the Florida tomato industry.
The agreement includes a strict code of conduct, a cooperative complaint resolution system, a health and safety program, a worker-to-worker education process and the penny more a pound for tomatoes picked that workers have long sought.
The agreement will take effect in two stages. This growing season (2010-2011), all participating FTGE members will pay the penny more per pound. At the same time, CIW and two growers, Six L’s and Pacific Tomato Growers will hammer out a process for enforcing the code of conduct throughout the industry. The code will apply only to Six L’s and Pacific this season. It goes into full effect in the 2011-2012 season.
Landmark Deal Sets Standard in Tomato Industry
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The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), spearheading the Campaign for Fair Food, signed a landmark agreement this week with Pacific Tomato Growers (PTG), one of the country’s largest tomato producers. This new deal sets new standards for social responsibility and accountability in Florida’s tomato industry.
Not only is this the first formal agreement between the CIW and a major tomato grower, but the new accord establishes several practical steps to ensure the key principles of the Campaign for Fair Food’s code of conduct are followed. Those principles include a joint complaint resolution system, a health and safety program and a worker-to-worker education process.
The agreement also provides for third-party auditing of compliance with the code. Like CIW’s other agreements, it adds a penny more per pound payment for tomatoes picked. For more information on the deal, click here.
Tomato Workers’ Struggle for Justice Moves to Supermarket Aisles
The fight for justice for tomato pickers is headed to grocery store aisles across the country now that the top three food service companies and the four largest fast-food companies have signed agreements to improve wages and working conditions in the Florida tomato fields.
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) is gearing up to expand its Campaign for Fair Food to the Publix, Ahold, Kroger and Trader Joe’s supermarket chains, which together have tremendous market power in the produce industry. So far, only the Whole Foods supermarket chain has signed an agreement with the CIW.
The workers are demanding safer, more humane working conditions and a penny more per pound of tomatoes picked. Florida tomato pickers earn 45 cents for a 32-pound bucket of tomatoes, a rate that has not changed for three decades.
Tomato Pickers’ Struggle Coming to a Grocery Store Near You
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The fight for justice for tomato pickers is headed to grocery store aisles across the country now that the top three food service companies and the four largest fast-food companies have signed agreements to improve wages and working conditions in the Florida tomato fields.
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) announced earlier this week that Sodexo, the largest food service company in the nation, had agreed to pay an additional 1.5 cents for every pound of Florida tomatoes it purchases, with the extra money going directly to the harvesters.
At least 30,000 immigrant farm workers in Florida pick 95 percent of the nation’s tomato crop between October and June. The workers are demanding safer, more humane working conditions and a penny more per pound of tomatoes picked. Florida tomato pickers earn 45 cents for a 32-pound bucket of tomatoes, a rate that has not changed for three decades.
Sodexo joins a growing list of companies that have signed agreements with CIW, including Aramark, Compass Group North America, Bon Appetit Management Co., Subway, Taco Bell and its corporate parent, Yum! Brands, McDonald’s, Burger King, and Whole Foods Market.
Immokalee Freedom March Challenges Publix to Do the Right Thing
More than 1,000 farm workers and religious, student and fair food activists braved the rain for a massive picket, march and rally in Lakeland, Fla., Sunday to demand that Publix Super Markets respect the human rights of the workers who provide the food on the store shelves.
Here’s how Eric Holt Gimenez described the scene on Huffington Post:
Despite a steady drizzle, marchers laid a double picket line down the entire long block of the Publix shopping center, marching, singing and dancing. Bilingual chants of “Hey hey, ho ho Publix poverty has got to go!” and Publix, escucha, el pueblo esta en la lucha!
A stream of vehicles drove past the protesters, many honking their horns in support.
Impoverished Farm Workers Respond to Need in Haiti
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Union members and other working people across the country are digging deep into their hearts and pockets to provide aid to the victims of the massive earthquake in Haiti. You can take action now to help the Haitian survivors by clicking on the AFL-CIO Haitian Disaster Relief site here.
One of this country’s most impoverished areas—the farm worker community of Immokalee, Fla.—is doing its part. Enlisting its low-power radio station, Radio Conciencia, members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) launched a donation drive. They will send all donations to the Red Cross.
The CIW website says the response has been overwhelming.
Seeing farm workers—who are themselves suffering unemployment and economic crisis due to two weeks of freezing temperatures that destroyed crops across south Florida—stream into the office with water, clothes, and canned food is nothing short of inspiring.
Florida Activist Training Draws 200 Union Members
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Joshua Anijar, a zone coordinator for the Florida AFL-CIO, sends us this report on a recent activist training session that drew more than 200 union members from Central Florida Labor Council unions in Orlando late last month.
This was the Central Florida AFL-CIO’s first activist training and it will become an annual event to help equip union members with the skills and training that will help in organizing, political and other mobilizations. We had rank-and-file union members from more than two dozen unions and constituency and other labor groups.
Fernando Redon from Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 606 says the daylong session with speakers and workshops
gave my members a chance to get training on topics that can help them be more active in their local meetings or on the job site, while giving them a larger perspective and education of worker struggle, dignity and justice.
Tomato Workers Score Huge Victory
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In a huge win for farm workers, one of the nation’s top food service and management companies reached an agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to improve working conditions and give a raise directly to Florida’s tomato harvesters.
The pact between Compass Group North America and the CIW calls for the company to pay an additional 1.5 cents per pound for all the tomatoes it purchases each year, with 1 cent per pound passed directly from the supplier to the workers. The agreement boosts workers’ wages from 50 cents for a 32-pound bucket to 82 cents per bucket, a 64 percent increase.
This is the first agreement where the money goes directly to the workers. Previous agreements called for the money to go into an escrow account.
