The Campaign for Fair Food
Farmworkers and consumers advancing human rights and social responsibility
The Campaign for Fair Food calls upon major food buyers to end poverty and modern slavery in the Florida fields by working in partnership with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a human rights award-winning farmworker organization in Immokalee, FL. The Campaign is supported by religious, human rights, student and sustainable food organizations across the nation.
The Campaign for Fair Food has been successful in achieving landmark agreements between the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and some of the largest food corporations in the world: Yum! Brands (Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC and others), McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, Whole Foods Market, Bon Appétit, and food service providers Compass Group, Aramark, and Sodexo. These agreements are changing the very structure of the food system so that it ensures the well-being of the men and women who harvest. These corporations are paying a net penny per pound increase to farmworkers who harvest tomatoes for their suppliers, counteracting the downward pressure food buyers’ high volume/low cost purchasing has had on wages and working conditions. Through fair food agreements with the CIW, willing buyers and over 90 percent of the Florida growers are, right now, implementing a strict code of conduct, a cooperative complaint resolution system, a participatory health and safety program, and a worker-to-worker education process.
Through the Campaign for Fair Food, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has joined with the Roman Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church, the United Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and many other faith bodies to work side-by-side with the CIW farmworkers toward a more sustainable and just food system. The Presbyterian Hunger Program fosters Presbyterian participation in the Campaign across the nation.
Conditions in the fields
According to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Florida supplies over 90 percent of the tomatoes consumed by Americans from October to May. However, according to the US Department of Labor, most farmworkers today earn less than $12,000 a year. 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.
Tomato pickers harvesting in Florida, toil long days in pesticide laden fields with no right to overtime pay, no health insurance, no sick leave, no paid vacation, and no right to organize to improve these conditions. In the most extreme cases, workers are held against their will and forced to work through violence or threat of violence, in modern-day slavery rings. The CIW has worked with the US Department of Justice and FBI to successfully investigate and prosecute 7 cases of slavery in recent years, freeing more than 1,000 slaves. These cases have been prosecuted using laws put on the books following reconstruction or under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act passed in 2000. The conditions in the fields are appalling and systemic. But through the CIW’s Fair Food agreements we are seeing, as one US Senator stated, “the beginning of the end of this harvest of shame.”
Campaigns and historic agreements
The Campaign for Fair Food was initiated in April 2001 when the CIW called for a nation-wide consumer boycott of Taco Bell restaurants and products. Presbyterians and other people of faith had long offered food and clothing to the farmworkers in Immokalee. Through this experience people of faith were led to ask “why is it that farmworkers work 10-12 hours a day, sometimes 7 days a week and still cannot support their own families?” It was this fundamental question of human dignity that prompted the Presbytery of Tampa Bay to overture the 214th General Assembly in support of the Taco Bell boycott. After prayer and study, the General Assembly voted affirmatively to support the boycott in June 2002. Over the next three years Presbyterians joined Methodists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Baptists and many other people of faith in observing the boycott, writing letters, engaging in public protest, and supporting the CIW on “truth tours” where workers traveled cross-country to educate consumers about the exploitative conditions that lay behind the food we consume. The PC(USA) played a unique role in convening talks between the CIW and Yum! Brands which helped lead to the farmworkers’ historic agreement with Yum! Brands/Taco Bell in 2005. In June of 2006, the 217th General Assembly passed a resolution affirming the church’s ongoing work with the CIW and the Campaign for Fair Food in light of the confessional heritage of the PC(USA).
The Campaign for Fair Food then focused on reaching similar agreements with the largest fast-food corporations in the world. Together with other people and institutions of faith and conscience, the PC(USA) played an active role in engaging corporations through letter-writing, public witness, hosting educational programs, prayer, and conversation. This engagement has helped the CIW achieve agreements with McDonald’s, Burger King, and Subway in the fast-food industry, as well as Whole Foods Market in the grocery industry, Bon Appétit and three of the nation’s largest food service providers: Compass Group, Aramark and Sodexo. These historic agreements commit these major food corporations to work with the CIW to: (a) pay an extra net penny per pound for tomatoes harvested for their company which growers pass on to farmworkers, (b) establish an enforceable code of conduct for their grower/suppliers with a zero-tolerance policy for modern-day slavery, and (c) ensure the full participation of farmworkers in the creation and monitoring of these agreements.
How the Fair Food agreements address modern-day alavery in the fields
Modern-day slavery doesn’t occur in a vacuum; it flourishes in degraded work environments with poverty wages and few rights. The high-volume, low-cost purchasing practices of giant corporate buyers drive growers to hold down costs wherever they can which has resulted in stagnant, poverty wages for 30 years and, in the worst instances, modern-day slavery. Oxfam America wrote in a 2004 study, Like Machines in the Fields, "Squeezed by the buyers of their produce, growers pass on the costs and risks imposed on them to those on the lowest rung of the supply chain: the farmworkers they employ" (page 36). The agreements between the CIW and food corporations include a zero-tolerance policy for slavery in their supply chains. How does this work? In 2008 when crew-leaders working for two Florida growers were sentenced in federal court for enslaving farmworkers, including locking tomato pickers in a cargo truck, chaining them to posts, and forcing them to work in the fields, companies that had fair food agreements with CIW were legally obligated to suspend purchases from involved growers. This is the first time in history that such market power has been used to address to the enslavement of workers in the US agricultural industry. Further, the agreements address the poverty and abuses that allow slavery to flourish by enforcing the code of conduct for fair working conditions, the penny per pound wage increase, and by driving purchasing to growers who meet higher standards for workers. The 218th General Assembly committed the church to coordinated work against modern-day slavery, including in the agricultural industry. The CIW is a partner with the PC(USA) in educating and working to eradicate this grave human rights violation.
Next Steps
Aside from Whole Foods Market, the supermarket industry has been slow to adopt the higher standards widely accepted by the fast-food and food service industries and supported by Florida growers. The Campaign is urging Kroger, Ahold, Publix and Trader Joe’s corporations to work with the CIW to improve farmworker wages by paying an additional net penny per pound and to address human rights abuses by adopting and enforcing the fair food code of conduct.
What you can do
- Pray for the farmworkers, major tomato buyers in restaurant, grocery, and foodservice, the growers, and the work of the Campaign for Fair Food and learn more about the PC(USA)’s participation in the Campaign for Fair Food or contact The Rev. Noelle Damico or 631-371-9877.
- Send postcards to the CEOs of Publix, Kroger (Dillon’s, Ralphs and many others), Ahold (Stop & Shop, Giant, Martin’s and Peapod), and Trader Joe’s grocery chains, and drop off manager’s letters to local grocery stores calling on them to work with the CIW. Visit to order postcards or download manger’s letters.
- Support the PC(USA)’s work on the Campaign for Fair Food by giving generously to the One Great Hour of Sharing Offering.