Labor & Employment Law

Tomato Workers? Struggle for Justice Moves to Supermarket Aisles

By James Parks

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.

You can help the tomato workers. Click here to send an email today to the CEOs of Publix, Ahold, Kroger and Trader Joe’s to demand they quit stalling and start working with the CIW to protect human rights in their Florida tomato supply chain.

Then, mark these dates on your calendar to join with farm workers from Immokalee and allies from across the country as they rally for farm worker justice: The first rally will be Feb. 27 in Quincy, Mass. at Ahold’s U.S. headquarters. Then, following a week-long tour back down the East Coast, they will protest again March 5 in Tampa, Fla. in Publix’s backyard.

Because of its high-volume purchasing power, the U.S. supermarket industry plays an active role in farm worker exploitation, CIW says in a press release, and:

…with great power comes great responsibility?both for the poverty and brutal working conditions from which they have profited for so many years, and for the work of reforming farm labor conditions in their supply chains that lies ahead.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on October 12, 2010 (boomark / email).