farmworkers

Mitchell Atencio 8-26-2022

Farmworkers on their march from Delano to Sacramento, Calif. Courtesy of United Farm Workers

The marchers, organized by the United Farm Workers, were joined by hundreds of allies, including faith leaders, throughout their march. Farmworkers marched through triple-digit temperature days on their peregrinacion (pilgrimage). They carried American and Mexican flags, flags with union logos, and a banner featuring a large image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a title for the Virgin Mary that carries special significance for Mexican and Mexican-Americans. Marchers proclaimed, “We feed you!” and chanted the UFW slogan “Sí, se puede (Yes, it can be done!)”

Melissa Cedillo 4-01-2022

Silvia Perez marches during a protest of Wendy’s in southwest Florida in Oct. 2018. Photo Courtesy CIW.

Farmworkers in Palm Beach, Fla. are set to march five miles in protest of Wendy’s treatment of farmworkers, and their protest has received a blessing from the Archbishop Thomas Wenski.

Betsy Shirley 12-08-2015
Julia de la Cruz / JP Keenan

Julia de la Cruz / JP Keenan

Julia de la Cruz, originally from Mexico, is a farmworker, an organizer, and a member of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). After forging agreements with 14 of the largest food retailers in the U.S.—including Walmart, McDonald’s, Trader Joe’s, and Chipotle—to establish labor standards and fair wages for tomato workers, CIW launched the Fair Food Program, a partnership among growers, farm workers, and retail food companies ensuring fair pay and humane working conditions on participating farms. This interview was conducted in English and Spanish, with Elena Stein, a faith organizer for Alliance for Fair Food, translating.

1.  Why have farm workers in the U.S. continually faced unfair wages and inhumane working conditions? The body that was most responsible was not the growers who employ us, but actually the corporations at the very top of the supply chain who use their enormous purchasing power to demand artificially low costs of the produce we harvest. That demand results in growers cutting costs in the one place where they can: labor. And there you get the poverty and exploitation that we have experienced for decades.

2.  Does it help farm workers if consumers stop purchasing products that are grown in bad working conditions? More and more we hear this idea of voting with your fork: this idea that consumers affect conditions based on how they use their dollar. But the truth is that if somebody chooses to refrain from buying a good, the impact really won’t be felt by corporations such that they’ll be forced to change their policies. But corporations will be impacted and forced to change their policies when a worker-led campaign forces them.

So we’d ask consumers to build consciousness by listening to farm workers and their experience and their analysis of the food system that nourishes each of us. The second thing we’d ask for is commitment—and that can mean a lot of things, but it definitely means getting to the street and protesting the corporations that have turned a blind eye to the abuses they have perpetuated.

Ivone Guillen 7-29-2015

After more than two decades of working to increase social responsibility in the agricultural industry, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) has announced a new partnership with a leading grocer that will bring "Fair Food" tomatoes — ones that are responsibly sourced — to more than 50 million new customers a month in nearly 780 new stores in 14 states. 

This new collaboration between Ahold USA (parent company to Giant, Stop & Shop, and Peapod) and CIW sends an important message across the grocery industry: supporting a modern and humane agricultural industry improves the lives of agricultural workers. 

Brian McLaren 3-11-2014
L. Kragt Bakker / Shutterstock.com

Coalition of Immokalee Workers protest at an Atlanta Publix, L. Kragt Bakker / Shutterstock.com

Dear Publix Leadership,

I should begin by saying that I am in almost all ways a big fan of your company. I often shop in a nearby Publix, and shopping there truly is a pleasure. It is clean. The staff are friendly and helpful. The products are good and the prices reasonable.

I'm especially impressed with the way Publix hires people with disabilities.

To provide a needed service and then go above and beyond in seeking to benefit the community — that's a winning combination, and a legacy to be proud of.

That's why I've been so surprised to see Publix (along with Wendy's) refusing (so far) to join the Fair Food Program. And that's why I've been outspoken in my desire to see Publix live up to the ideals of its founder, George Jenkins, who said, “Don’t let making a profit stand in the way of doing the right thing."

Rachel Marie Stone 5-18-2012
Field image by eurospiders/Shutterstock.

Field image by eurospiders/Shutterstock.

They call it the field de calzon — the "field of panties" —because so many rapes happen there.

On Wednesday, the organization Human Rights Watch released the report Cultivating Fear: The Vulnerability of Immigrant Farmworkers in the US to Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment. It’s filled with tales that would make Jeremiah, or Amos, or Micah weep: stories of some of the most marginalized, exploited, and impoverished people in the country.

HRW talked to 160 farmworkers, growers, law enforcement officials, attorneys and other experts in agricultural workplace issues in 8 different states, finding that most women working in agriculture have been — or know someone who has been — victimized sexually at work; confirming the findings of a 2010 survey of California Central Valley workers in which 80 percent reported having experienced sexual harassment or abuse on the job.

It’s common enough that some women farm workers see it as “an unavoidable condition of agricultural work.”

Will you be giving up chocolate for Lent? Coffee? Then why not fast for justice? Why not abstain from shopping at grocery stores that scoff at the notion of Fair Trade for farmworkers here at home?

Duane Shank 1-30-2009
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