No time to celebrate
If boycotts and demonstrations could work against Taco Bell, the workers thought, the techniques could succeed with other fast-food titans, as well as companies that supplied tomatoes to restaurants, universities, museums and company cafeterias.
The alliance launched campaigns against household-name brands and suppliers, who signed on to the Fair Food Program in rapid succession: McDonald’s in 2007; Whole Foods, Burger King and Subway in 2008; food suppliers Compass Group and Bon Appetit Management Co. in 2009; Sodexo and Aramark in 2010; Chipotle and Trader Joe’s in 2012.
The food giants agreed to pay the penny-perpound to workers through growers who follow a list of rules, including providing tents for shade, accessible drinking water, committees that monitor workplace safety and time for workers to be educated on their rights during work hours.
“Our eyes were being opened to the issues facing farmworkers,” said Maisie Ganzler, Bon Appetit’s vice president of strategy. Company representatives visited Immokalee. “It was moving to meet workers advocating for themselves.”
New companies continue to enroll: Wal-Mart joined in 2014 and Fresh Market in 2015.
And then there is the consumer. Many consumers are concerned about pesticides on the foods they eat, forcing grocers to provide organic fruits and vegetables. But do they care about farmworker safety?
Carolyn North, a mother of two from Delray Beach, said she checks labels in search of Florida and organic produce, but hasn’t thought much about farmworker conditions as she shops.
“I see workers in trucks on their way to the farms,” said North, 50. “But I don’t know how to find out about their working conditions. If I found out a farm was mistreating its employees, I wouldn’t buy from there.”
The holdouts
These grocery stores and restaurant chains have reached agreements with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to improve wages and labor conditions for tomato workers in their supply chains. Fresh Market Chipotle Trader Joe’s Mexican Grill Wal-Mart KFC Whole Foods McDonald’s Market Pizza Hut Burger King Subway
Taco Bell — Compiled by Lois Solomon
There still are two major food enterprises targeted by the coalition that have declined to sign the agreement: Wendy’s and Publix.
These companies say that it’s not their responsibility to pay employees of farm contractors. They say the farmers should pay the workers directly.
Wendy’s said its suppliers abide by the coalition’s Fair Food Code of Conduct, which means they work only with growers who submit to audits and agree to a list of treatment standards for workers.
“We simply do not believe that it is appropriate for us to compensate individuals who work for another company,” Wendy’s spokesman Bob Bertini said. “It’s up to their employer, not us.”
The coalition has put its strongest spotlight on Publix because of its large market share in Florida, about half the South Florida grocery market.
A documentary, “Food Chains,” with actress and activist Eva Longoria as an executive producer and nominated for a 2014 Academy Award, showed a six-day fast by Benitez and fellow Immokalee workers in front of Publix headquarters in Lakeland.
And earlier in 2015, more than 1,000 participants walked through St. Petersburg during a March and Concert for Fair Food; one colorful banner said, “Publix: How Much Longer?”
Publix has responded with its own defensive strategy, including a slogan, “Put It In The Price,” saying the company sympathizes with workers but not the payment system devised by the coalition.
“The CIW’s Fair Food campaign makes it sound like Publix is unwilling to pay a penny more per pound of tomatoes, which is not true,” Publix spokeswoman Nicole Krauss said. “We have publicly and repeatedly offered to pay the extra penny per pound and more.
“To give workers better wages, we will gladly pay more for tomatoes if our
Impact
The penny-a-pound premium can amount to as much as $100 a week in a worker’s paycheck, lifting a farmworker’s annual salary from about $10,000 to $17,000 a year, advocates say.
Tomato workers have earned almost $20 million since 2011 through the program, said Laura Safer Espinoza, a retired New York State Supreme Court justice charged with ensuring that the Fair Food agreements are enforced.
“I thought cleaning up the Florida tomato industry would take a long time,” said Safer Espinoza, executive director of the Sarasotabased Fair Foods Standards Council. “But after three seasons, there have been no cases of forced labor or violence by supervisors against workers. This includes sexual assault, which is well-documented as prevalent outside the Fair Food Program.”
Coalition founder Germino said the Florida Modern-Day Slavery Museum, a traveling exhibit that includes Edgar’s famous bloody shirt and other relics of brutality against farmworkers, now seems as if is filled with antiques.
“We’re most proud that the museum, for the tomato industry, is actually history,” Germino said. “With other crops not in the Fair Food Program, this is not history.”
The coalition believes the Fair Food Program, covering 90 percent of Florida’s tomato farms, provides a model that can apply to migrants who pick other crops, from cucumbers to watermelons to apples to strawberries, and other regions of the country.
As part of the coalition’s agreement with Wal-Mart, the company agreed to broaden the penny-apound increase and human-rights improvements to its suppliers in other states. Farms from Georgia to New Jersey, where Wal-Mart buys tomatoes in the summer, were audited and monitored by the Fair Food Standards Council last summer.
The council conducted its first audit of a Florida strawberry farm last summer; its first audit of green pepper farms, where the agreement now applies to 10,000 workers, is taking place this winter. And the program has advised migrant dairy workers in Vermont who are seeking better wages, housing and a day off each week.
“The dream for us is to create a new agricultural industry in this country,” Benitez said, “with proud farmers and proud buyers who receive the same treatment as an office worker for an honest, hard job.”
it
lsolomon@tribpub.com or 561-243-6536