We have been following the push by Florida tomato growers for higher wages from contracts negotiated with restaurants and grocery stores, most recently here. That agreement cleared its final hurdle in November "when the farmworkers’ group, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, and the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, a trade association, completed details of a code of conduct that included not only the wage improvement but also guarantees of increased workplace protections — like minimum-wage guarantees and a zero tolerance policy on forced and child labor — for the laborers," Kristofer Rios reports for The New York Times.
The agreement will pay the growers about a penny more for every pound of fruit they harvest. Now some are championing the agreement as precedent setting for improving working conditions and pay in other parts of the agriculture industry. "This can and will be extended to other areas of the agricultural industry," said Chris Tilly, director of the U.C.L.A. Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. Tilly said this type of agreement was uncommon and "there are potentially interesting implications for supply chains that reach outside this country." The agreement would increase workers' annual income from around $12,000 a year to about $17,000.
"At least nine major buyers — including the Whole Foods Market supermarket chain, as well as McDonald’s and Burger King — have been paying the penny-per-pound price increase," Rios writes. Still some in the industry worry the agreement could be undermined if buyers turn to competitors in other states that sell tomatoes at a cheaper price. "We hope that socially responsible businesses will purchase tomatoes from our growers and not cheaper tomatoes from Mexican farm competitors," said Reggie Brown, executive vice president of the FTGE, which represents 80 percent of the state’s tomato farmers. "Everybody in the system has to be invested for it to work." (Read more)
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