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A group of Florida tomato pickers are showing up at the Center City Trader Joe’s tomorrow at 5pm to protest low wages and dangerous working conditions in tomato fields that are so brutal they have actually been the site of documented cases of slave labor.
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers has mounted pioneering and successful campaigns against Subway, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and the behemoth Florida Tomato Growers Exchange (FTGE) thanks to a nation-wide network of student and community solidarity activists. The farmworkers want Trader Joe’s to join these corporations and sign a “Fair Food agreement” that would guarantee workers a penny more per-pound for tomatoes picked.
Whole Foods has signed up with the farmworkers, but Trader Joe’s still won’t say where it gets its tomatoes. According to an article in Grist, however, it is likely farmworkers that pay the price in Trader Joe’s system for getting you cheap food:
Trader Joe's business model is based on offering a limited selection of high-quality products at very low prices. By restricting its inventory, it's able to effectively wield its purchasing power and demand deep discounts from its suppliers.
Unfortunately for farmworkers, it is precisely this type of high-volume, low-cost purchasing that has created strong downward pressure on wages and working conditions as suppliers look to cut costs in order to maintain profit margins. Supermarket chains may not have created farmworker poverty, but they continue to play an active, and profitable, role in perpetuating it.
Trader Joe's rejects worker accusations in a letter to customers, which workers then respond to here.
The Immokalee workers will also be protesting Giant and Stop and Shop, which are both owned by Ahold.
In other news, it was West Philly’s Prometheus Radio Project that helped build Immokalee’s community radio station, Radio Conciencia.
And a new book called Tomatoland argues that alongside promoting slave labor, industrial Florida tomatoes also taste like crap.
Check out the Campaign for Fair Food’s press release here:
PRESS RELEASE
Philadelphia consumers to protest Trader Joe’s demanding fair labor standards for farmworkers
Grocer continues to spurn Campaign for Fair Food
PHILADELPHIA - On Thursday, August 4th, local consumers and community members will join with a delegation of farmworkers from Florida at the Trader Joe’s at 2121 Market Street in Center City, where they will call on Trader Joe’s to participate in a “fair food program” – a multi-party effort to end decades of farm labor abuse faced by Florida tomato pickers. The protest is part of a two-week East Coast tour calling on Trader Joe’s and Ahold (owner of Giant and Stop & Shop supermarkets) to join in the growing movement for fairly produced tomatoes.
When: Thursday, August 4th at 5:00 PM
Where: Trader Joe’s, 2121 Market Street, Philadelphia
Florida farmworkers have long faced brutal conditions in the fields, including sub-poverty wages, widespread labor rights violations, and even modern-day slavery. Farmworkers typically earn just 50 cents per 32-pound bucket of tomatoes, a rate which has remained nearly unchanged for 3 decades. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a Florida farmworker organization, has uncovered and assisted the Department of Justice in the prosecution of 6 modern-day slavery rings, freeing over 1,000 workers.
Nine major food industry leaders – including Subway, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Whole Foods – have signed Fair Food agreements with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a Florida farmworker organization. The Fair Food agreements include a penny-per-pound piece rate wage increase for tomato pickers, a strict code of conduct, a cooperative complaint resolution system, a participatory health and safety program, and a worker-to-worker education process. In November, the CIW and the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange (FTGE) signed an agreement to extend these principles to over 90% of Florida's tomato fields in a phased in process over 2 seasons.
“Today, however, we are finally beginning to see the first glimmers of more humane treatment at work, thanks to the Campaign for Fair Food,” said Oscar Otzoy of the CIW. “But Trader Joe's is standing in the way of progress, and their refusal to help improve farm labor wages and working conditions threatens to undermine the unprecedented – and still fragile – human rights advances that are just now starting to take root in the fields.”
Trader Joe's is refusing to participate, and if they have their way, the unprecedented farm labor transformation promised by the CIW's landmark agreement with the FTGE will be significantly diminished. Protesters will be calling on Trader Joe’s to contribute its fair share – its penny-per-pound – to improve wages for farmworkers who pick its tomatoes and to commit to directing its purchases toward growers who comply with the code of conduct – and away from those who don't – in order to help improve working conditions in the fields.
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