Slavery in Tomato Fields? "Not Our Business," Says Publix Supermarkets | Sustainable Food | Change.org

by Adriana Velez January 05, 2011 12:30 PM (PT)

2010 was a big year for tomatoes. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a community-based organization of immigrant agriculture workers in Florida, drew national attention to the slavery conditions of Florida's tomato pickers through the non-profit's traveling Modern-Day Slavery Museum. CIW's Campaign for Fair Food won major victories, with food-service giants Compass Foods, Aramark, and Sodexo and Florida's third-largest tomato producer, East Coast Growers, agreeing to pay more for their tomatoes and abolish unfair working conditions in their supply chians. These companies join Taco Bell, Whole Foods, McDonald's, Burger King, and Subway in meeting the CIW's standards addressing farmworker wages and working conditions.

But the CIW's work is far from over. Trader Joe's and other major grocers continue to refuse to negotiate with CIW. Most recently, grocery retailer Publix not only refused to meet with CIW, but came out with a stunning statement justifying the supermarket chain's inaction.

Usually PR executives are pretty slick at skirting around awkward questions, but Publix's media and communications manager was direct and candid in his recent comments. When a reporter for Baldwin County Now asked spokesman Dwaine Stevens if Publix would meet with CIW, he said no. Then he went on to express how Publix just doesn't care about agricultural slavery in its supply chain. "If there are some atrocities going on, it’s not our business," Stevens said. "Maybe it’s something the government should get involved with.”

Not a grocery retailer's "business" to make ethical standards for its purchasing? And since when do status-quo-loving businesses think government is the answer, anyway? It's an upside-down world over at Publix.

Companies like Publix are increasingly in the minority. As more and more retailers and restaurants take the bold step toward ethical purchasing, the public is starting to take notice — and this is where we come in. Corporations may not be inclined to respond to workers' demands, but they are usually sensitive to consumers' demands.

According to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton (i.e. "the government"), ending slavery is everyone's responsibility. When she presented CIW's Laura Germino with the Trafficking in Persons Hero Award she stated, "All of us have a responsibility to bring this practice to an end... And we can’t just blame international organized crime and rely on law enforcement... It is everyone’s responsibility. Businesses that knowingly profit or exhibit reckless disregard about their supply chains... all of us have to speak out and act forcefully."

As consumers it's our responsibility to help end slavery by calling on companies like Publix to come to the table with CIW. You can demand this by signing our petition to Publix telling them to only sell slavery-free tomatoes.

Source: food.change.org

Slavery in Tomato Fields? "Not Our Business," Says Publix Supermarkets | Sustainable Food | Change.org

Florida Tomato Farm Owners Sign Historic Agreement to Stop Worker Abuse | End Human Trafficking | Change.org

by Anne Keehn November 18, 2010 06:41 AM (PT)

Florida-based farm worker advocacy group the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) scored one more victory in their Fair Food campaign yesterday. After a 15 year stand off, the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange (FTGE) — a private cooperative of farm owners — has agreed to sign CIW's code of conduct, pledging to improve working conditions and pay farm workers an extra penny-per-pound of tomatoes harvested. This is a historic victory in the fight against farmworker slavery and exploitation.

CIW has been working to end farm labor abuse and slavery since the 1990s, well before the existence of modern day slavery was widely recognized. In a 1997 landmark case, they assisted in the investigation and prosecution of two men who enslaved hundreds of farm workers in Florida and South Carolina. Miguel Flores and Sebastian Gomez forced laborers (most of whom were migrant workers from Central America) to work long hours with little pay. Armed guards beat and even shot workers who attempted to escape. Both Flores and Gomez were charged with slavery — among other offenses — and sentenced to federal prison for 15 years.

CIW is perhaps most well known for successfully pressuring major fast food chains — including Taco Bell, McDonalds, Burger King and Subway — to monitor their supply chains and only buy tomatoes from farms that treat its workers fairly. As with the recent agreement with FTGE, the fast food companies also agreed to pay farm workers an extra penny-per-pound for tomatoes.

The Fair Food campaign was launched in 2001, partially in response to FTGE's unwillingness to eliminate worker abuse on their farms. The fast food victories no doubt helped leverage FTGE into compliance, by exhibiting that fair treatment of workers can lead to better consumer relations. In a press release, FTGE indicated that working with CIW to end slavery and worker abuse is, in the long term, good for business: "We are confident that... working together, [we can] build a stronger, more sustainable industry that will be better equipped than ever to thrive in an increasingly competitive market place."

In the same press release, CIW representative Gerardo Reyes announced the next front on the battle for fair treatment of Florida's tomato farm workers: supermarkets. "Key players in the fast-food and food service industries have already committed their support," he said. "It is time now for supermarket industry leaders to seize this historic opportunity and help make the promise of fresh—and fair—tomatoes from Florida a reality."

Last month, Change.org blogger Amanda Kloer wrote, "so far, the $550 billion supermarket industry, with the exception of Whole Foods, has refused to step up and bring their considerable purchasing power to the plate. Why won't grocery stores agree to protect farm workers from slavery?"

Why, indeed?

Do your part to ensure that supermarkets work to eradicate slavery in the supply chain of tomatoes. Sign the petition demanding that Trader Joe's join CIW's Fair Food campaign.

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Photo Credit: The Ewan

Anne Keehn was a media volunteer at the L.A.-based direct services organization the Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking and is currently the Zimmerman Fellow at Free the Slaves.

Soource: End Human Trafficking

Florida Tomato Farm Owners Sign Historic Agreement to Stop Worker Abuse | End Human Trafficking | Change.org

Related articles

• D.C. Area Activists Ask Giant, Stop and Shop to Sell Slave-Free Food (humantrafficking.change.org)
• An End to Slavery in Florida? (food.change.org)

Kurt Michael Friese: A Penny per Pound to Help End Modern Slavery (Video)

Kurt Michael Friese

Chef, Author, Restaurateur

Posted: November 5, 2010 03:45 PM

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You would never participate in slavery, right?

I know, it seems like a bizarre question in this day and age -- of course no sane, civilized member of a modern society would take part in the indentured servitude of others. Lincoln ended all that 150 years ago, didn't he? And of course you and I would never have anything to do with slavery in 2010.

The dirty little secret though is that millions of Americans are contributing to it each week and they don't even know it. When you buy tomatoes at the local Publix, Ahold, Kroger, or Walmart, you become the last link in a chain that is attached to shackles in south Florida.

We all know Walmart especially is well known for their tireless efforts to force suppliers to keep costs down for everything they buy. One of the results of this kind of business practice is that the wage that pickers are paid for those tomatoes has not gone up for more than 30 years. That wage is $0.45 per bucket of picked green tomatoes, or $0.0145 per pound. And that's for the ones who actually do get paid.

Since 1993 the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has been working unstintingly to improve these situations, with much success (such as seven convictions for slavery in the last 13 years), but there is still a long way to go. Following on the heels of their victorious boycotts of Yum! Brands' Taco Bell, McDonald's, Burger King, and Subway, they also concluded successful negotiations with Whole Foods and BAMCO. Eric Schlosser called their talks with Compass Group "the greatest victory for farmworkers since Cesar Chavez in the 1970′s." But the work is nowhere near complete.

Earlier this year the CIW launched the Florida Modern Day Slavery Museum, an exhibit mounted on the back of a cargo truck like the one used to imprison farmworkers in the 2008 US v. Navarette slavery conviction. It has been touring the country, and will be touring parts of the Florida, Georgia, and Alabama later this month.

Now the CIW is turning its attention to those big grocery chains in an effort to get them, like the fast food chains before them, to commit to paying an additional penny per pound for the tomatoes they sell and to verify that the extra cent goes directly to the pickers. To help spread the word about this campaign, IATP Food and Society Fellows Shalini Kantayya and Sean Sellers have collaborated on a video that sums up the situation nicely.

The migrant labor issue is the vital subtext of America's ongoing immigration debate. You may have seen the recent attention paid to it by Stephen Colbert and the "Take our Jobs" campaign. Some of the workers in and around Immokalee are undocumented, most are here legally. Either way though, surely we can agree that they are all deserving of basic human rights while Washington works (or not) on the larger immigration reform debate. You can play your part by spreading the word, and by telling the management of your local grocery that you'll no longer be a party to slavery, and you hope they won't either.

by Kurt Michael Friese

VIDEO: One Penny More

Kurt Michael Friese: A Penny per Pound to Help End Modern Slavery (Video)

Trader Joe's Tomatoes Picked By Slave Labor In Florida? | Big News

Source: The Faster Times

September 14, 2010 Nathan Hege

Trader Joe’s Buys Tomatoes Picked With Slave Labor

Trader Joe’s is cool. It is hip. Everyone wants the store in their neighborhood.

Here at the Faster Times, we have explored the ambiguities behind the Trader Joe’s image. From an investigation by Amy Westervelt into the company’s private label business:

“You’d hear stories about it all the time, this small producer who was basically putting all their eggs in the Trader Joe’s basket and then they wouldn’t be able to shave another penny or two off their price and the order would be pulled and the company would be ruined,” says Jeff Porter, a former buyer for Andronico’s Markets [a local chain of gourmet food stores in Northern California] and current Wine Director for Mario Battali’s Osteria Mozza in L.A.

“But it’s hard for companies to sell to Trader Joe’s and anybody else,” Porter continues. “First, Trader Joe’s doesn’t like them to, and second, other stores didn’t like them to either. They know they can’t compete with Trader Joe’s prices.”

Quality food at a cheaper price is okay by me. As I’ve written in previous investigation posts, though, what doesn’t sit quite right is the lack of transparency …

But does Trader Joe’s go beyond opaqueness into real darkness? Absolutely, according to the Human Trafficking blog at Change.org:

Trader Joe’s refuses to take one very critical progressive step and join the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ (CIW) Campaign for Fair Food. And because of their refusal, you might just be buying slave-picked produce from those friendly, Hawaiian shirt-wearing joes.

Modern-day slavery is a reality for many farm workers right here in the U.S. In Florida, over 1,000 people have been identified as trafficked in fields and on farms, picking the food we eat every day.

And when you follow the links, you get to the Campaign for Fair Food website, and you find out that companies like McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell, Whole Foods and Subway all joined the campaign. And you get quotes like this from a federal prosecutor calling Florida “ground zero for modern day slavery.” More from the site:

Like textile workers at the turn of the last century, Florida tomato harvesters are still paid by the piece. The average piece rate today is 50 cents for every 32-lbs of tomatoes they pick, a rate that has remained virtually unchanged since 1980. As a result of that stagnation, a worker today must pick more than 2.25 tons of tomatoes to earn minimum wage in a typical 10-hour workday – nearly twice the amount a worker had to pick to earn minimum wage thirty years ago, when the rate was 40 cents per bucket. Most farmworkers today earn less than $12,000 a year.

Trader Joe’s has a decent record at caving into environmental demands. Its corporate image almost dictates it. Yes, the company is the target of a campaign here. Yes, our agricultural economy is based all around on exploiting low-paid immigrant workers. But it is a shame that they have to be pressured, that they do not live up to their image from the beginning.

Trader Joe's Tomatoes Picked By Slave Labor In Florida?