General Assembly Mission Council

Choose One Day to Fast for Fair Food during Holy Week

The Fast for Fair Food outside Publix supermarket headquarters in Lakeland, FL (March 5-11) made a strong, moral appeal to Publix executives to recognize farmworkers’ humanity and to sit down face to face with the CIW to resolve any concerns they may have about the Fair Food Program. 

Presbyterians fast and support the Fast for Fair Food Outside Publix headquarters, March 5-10, 2012. Photo by Claudia Saenz.

Publix still has refused to sit down with their neighbors, so during Holy Week, the Florida Council of Churches is inviting you to select a day to fast for fair food and to write to Publix to urge them to join the Fair Food Program.

Pictured above are Presbyterian fasters the Rev. Michael Livingston of the National Council of Churches, Susan Sampson of Seffner Presbyterian Church near Lakeland, Sylvia Perez of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, and the Rev. Graham Hart, General Presbyter of Peace River Presbytery who led morning prayers at the fast.  On the sixth day, a dozen Florida clergy, most Presbyterian, and the family of Robert F. Kennedy, led a ceremony of break-breaking that focused on the “Table of Our Common LIfe” to which God invites us all.  See updates from the entire Fast for Fair Food: photos, media, video

Read Gradye Parson’s statement of support to the fasters

CIW and Allies Engage Ahold, April 12-17

The Rev. Wayne Parrish, General Presbyter of the Presbytery of Boston during a February 2011 rally in Boston

March 2012 – As the annual meeting of Royal Dutch Ahold on April 17th, the CIW and its allies are engaging Ahold’s US-based supermarket chains: Stop ‘n Shop, Giant and Martins.  As the Rev. Gradye Parsons, Stated Clerk of the PC(USA) General Assembly put it,

Inaction the face of generations of exploitation and a proven model for change is not neutral.  Your refusal to join the Fair Food Program threatens to undermine these important gains.  The time is now for you to join Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods Market and the eight other major food retailers who are working with the CIW and Florida growers to eliminate exploitation and slavery in the tomato fields.

If you’re near the following northeast cities, please join us for public witness.  Further details will soon be available on www.ciw-online.org

Trader Joe’s Signs Fair Food Agreement with the CIW!

Read the PC(USA) press release

On Thursday, February 9, 2012, Trader Joe’s signed a Fair Food agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, making it the tenth company to join the Fair Food program that is improving wages and conditions for farmworkers, guaranteeing corporate accountability and ensuring consumer confidence.

As you celebrate this agreement between Trader Joe’s and the CIW, take a moment to let the company know that they’ve done the right thing. Use our letter or drop off your own when you next shop at Trader Joe’s.

And let us renew our commitment to bringing the entire supermarket industry into the Fair Food Program. As the prophet Amos cried, “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream!”

Photo courtesy of C.I.W.

Fast for Fair Food at Publix Headquarters

March 5-10

February 2012 – “Is this not the fast that I choose?  To loose the bonds of injustice…” cries God through the prophet Isaiah!  The Coalition of Immokalee Workers has announced that on Monday, March 5^th, fifty farmworkers and their allies from the faith, student and sustainable food communities, will undertake a Fast for Fair Food at Publix Grocery headquarters in Lakeland, FL.  The 6-day fast will conclude on Saturday, March 10^th, as fair food allies rally at a nearby Publix location and then process 3.5 miles to Publix headquarters where they will join fasters in a celebration to break the fast. Read more

The New York Times Extols Fair Food Agreements

Photo courtesy of CIW.

January 2011 – Extolling the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ fair food agreements with corporate buyers and Florida growers, The New York Times ran an in depth article which built upon their favorable editorial in December.  The article illustrates the importance of all actors in the food industry bringing their power to bear if exploitation in the fields is to change once and for all.  That means the supermarket industry must join the fast food and foodservice industries in ensuring improved wages for farmworkers and implementing farmworker monitored codes of conduct to address abuses.

Now is the time for consumers to tell Ahold and Publix corporations to do their fair share. If you’re in the northeast area, come to the Community Farmworker Alliance “Encuentro,” February 4-6 in New York City to learn more and take action.  And mark your calendars for the CIW’s peaceful actions in Boston (February 27  in the afternoon) where we’ll focus on Ahold and in Tampa (March 4-5) where we’ll focus on Publix.  And keep those postcards and managers letters  going!

History in the making: CIW and FTGE sign Fair Food agreement!

Lucas Benitez of the CIW and Reggie Brown of the FTGE sign the fair food agreement as Gerardo Reyes Chavez of the CIW looks on. Photo courtesy of CIW.

November 2010 — On Tuesday November 16, 2010, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange signed an agreement that will extend the CIW's Fair Food principles – including a strict code of conduct, a cooperative complaint resolution system, a participatory health and safety program, and a worker-to-worker education process – to more than 90 percent of the Florida tomato industry. This is history in the making as the grower community affirms and supports the full participation of farmworkers in the protection of their own rights. See full press coverage and photo essay

The agreement was the capstone on the extraordinary progress made over the past month as the nation’s largest grower, Pacific Tomato Growers and Florida’s largest grower, Six L’s Packing Company each made direct agreements with the CIW.

In a joint statement, General Assembly Stated Clerk the Rev. Gradye Parsons and General Assembly Mission Council Executive Director Linda Valentine lauded the agreement’s collaborative approach to ensuring advances that draw upon the unique contributions that farmworkers, growers, corporations and consumers can make, drawing an analogy from it to the way that the Apostle Paul describes the church as a body whose members need each other to function well.

They called on the supermarket industry, “in particular Publix, Kroger and Ahold, to join this growing partnership of corporations, growers, farmworkers and consumer” saying that “if fair food principles are to be fully realized for every farmworker across the industry, supermarkets must also embrace them.” Read full statement

Take this opportunity to let grocery leaders know that you want them to step forward and support these historic advances that ensure human well-being.

Two Florida Growers Sign Agreements with CIW

Jon Esformes of Pacific Tomato Growers shakes hands with Lucas Benitez of CIW. Photo courtesy of CIW

October 2010 — Two of Florida’s largest tomato growers have made direct agreements with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.  On Wednesday, October 13, in a moving press conference, Jon Esformes, operating partner of Pacific Tomato Growers quoted Abraham Joshua Heschel saying, “‘Few are guilty, but all are responsible.’ ... The transgressions that took place are totally unacceptable today and they were totally unacceptable yesterday.” He went on to insist that farmworkers must have the same rights and protections as white-collar workers. Read more and see the photo gallery from this historic press conference. And the momentum for change picked up speed as Six L’s Packing Company, the largest tomato grower in Florida signed a similar agreement with the CIW on October 21. Read more

Ninth forced labor prosecution involving Florida farmworkers

September 2010 — A federal grand jury in Honolulu has indicted six people — including the President of Global Horizons Inc. (a guestworker recruiting company) — for conspiracy to commit forced labor in what the FBI called “the largest human trafficking case ever charged in U.S. history.”

The indictment refers to 400 Thai workers who were brought from Thailand to the United States by Global Horizons “to work on farms across the country under the U.S. federal agricultural guest worker program.”

They worked on farms in 13 states, including Hawaii, Washington, Florida, Ohio and Kentucky. The Department of Justice press release describes how “the defendants conspired and devised a scheme to obtain the labor of approximately 400 Thai nationals by enticing them to come to the United States with false promises of lucrative jobs, and then maintaining their labor at farms ... through threats of serious economic harm.” Read more

This case is a sobering reminder of the need to ensure basic rights for all those who labor in the fields. The U.S. State Department’s Trafficking in Persons report describes how forced labor is a form of modern-day slavery. Such abhorrent conditions do not occur in a vacuum, but in industries where workers lack basic rights.