By RACHEL LANE
D.C. Correspondent WASHINGTON, D.C. — With more than a million farm workers in the United States, agriculture is heavily reliant on manual labor, and the treatment of workers has been a concern in some areas of the country. Receiving low wages and often of illegal resident status, farm workers are a vulnerable segment of society. Discussing some of the issues, the Aspen Institute focused on farm workers as part of its Working in America series. The conversation at a panel Feb. 9 in Washington, D.C., focused on agriculture in Florida. Jon Esformes is CEO of Sunripe Certified Brands, a fourth-generation family-owned company that grows, packs and ships fresh tomatoes and citrus. He said he became aware of workers’ issues after his company’s name appeared in New York Times articles about the topic. He asked other producers if they had met with the organization mentioned in the article, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), but no one had spoken to them. “We had abdicated our responsibility in this story to the grower organizations that represented us,” Esformes said. Realizing that remaining distant from the conversation wasn’t working well for his company, he reached out CIW and met with its representatives. He became the first grower to sign onto the Fair Food Program (FFP), which is a partnership among farmers, farm workers and retail food companies to ensure humane wages and working conditions for the workers who pick fruits and vegetables for participating farmers. In June 2015, after four seasons of operating in the Florida tomato industry, the FFP expanded into tomato operations in Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey. It also expanded in Florida to include growers of bell peppers and strawberries. The CIW, built on the foundation of farm worker community organizing, started in 1993. At first, the organization reached out to the companies that bought the tomatoes from the farmers, said Greg Asbed, co-founder of CIW. There was no response. The CIW realized it needed to reach people with more power, to pressure the companies to pressure farmers to treat workers better. The CIW reached out to consumers. After several more years of work, college students started to pressure fast food companies to verify the tomatoes served were not picked by workers in slave-like conditions. “It’s not the sexual assault or the slavery – it’s the imbalance of power that allowed that to happen,” Asbed said. “We needed to find a power to balance the scales again.” Since then, all fast food companies in the United States except Wendy’s have signed the Fair Food Pledge. Susan L. Marquis, dean of the Frederick S. Pardee RAND Graduate School and RAND’s vice president for Innovation, wrote a book that came out in December called I Am Not a Tractor! How Florida Farmworkers Took on the Fast Food Giants and Won. She thinks the reason the farm workers changed their work environment was because the collaboration included workers, the growers and the top of the food chain. It took about 18 months to implement the FFP and eliminate the conditions that allowed the abuses reported to occur. “Change is possible if we start looking in new places for new solutions,” she said. “It’s important to look beyond the government. Waiting for government, it’s not going to get done.” Asbed said workers reported being sexually assaulted, physically abused, receiving limited breaks or limited water, not getting paid and, if they complained, being fired. “We were not asking anyone to save us … we ask for justice, not for charity,” said Gerardo Reyes Chavez, a farm worker from Mexico who became part of the CIW. As part of the FFP, he and his colleagues conduct workers’ rights education in the fields of participating farms. He receives complaints of abuse in the fields as well as wage theft, and assists in the investigation of modern-day slavery when charges arise. “We need to fix what hurts the most right now … we’re just people fighting for a better life,” Chavez said. The code of conduct for the FFP includes the following: •A pay increase supported by the “penny per pound” paid by participating buyers, such as Taco Bell, Whole Foods and Walmart •Zero tolerance for forced labor and sexual assault •Worker-to-worker education sessions carried out by the CIW on the farms and on company time to ensure workers understand their new rights and responsibilities •A worker-triggered complaint resolution mechanism (including a 24-hour hotline staffed by the Fair Food Standards Council) leading to complaint investigation, corrective action plans and, if necessary, suspension of a farm’s Participating Grower status, and thereby its ability to sell to Participating Buyers •Health and safety committees on every farm to give workers a structured voice in the shape of their work environment •Ongoing auditing of the farms to ensure compliance with each element of the FFP To learn more about the FFP, visit www.fairfoodprogram.org |
