PAGES

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Florida farmworkers pressure Publix, Ahold and subsidiaries to adopt 'Fair Food' principles

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, representing farmworkers in South Florida, launched a campaign in the Northeast to pressure food retailers to address human-rights violations in their production chain. The workers "held their first rally in Boston in late February and continued their corporate accountability actions aimed at the large supermarkets with a week-long tour of the East Coast," Yana Kunichoff reports for Truthout, a liberal-oriented news service. Santiago Perez, a farmworker who participated in the campaign, told Kunichoff "We hope this tour will help us achieve our goal of reaching agreements with the supermarket chains such as Publix, Stop & Shop, and others."

The campaign is pushing Publix and Ahold, which owns Stop & Shop, Giant of Landover and the online grocery delivery service Peapod, "to join a partnership of farmworkers, tomato growers and retail food stores and agree to CIW's 'Fair Food' principles, which include a wage increase of 1 cent per pound on tomatoes picked by workers, a cooperative system to resolve complaints, a comprehensive health and safety program, a worker-to-worker education process and a strict code of conduct for the industry," Kunichoff writes. Companies such as Whole Foods, Yum!Brands, McDonald's and Burger King Holdings have signed on to the Fair Food principles.

The farmworkers earn 50 cents for every 32-pound bucket of tomatoes. "CIW argues that a penny per pound increase for a worker who carries two tons or more of tomatoes a day could raise that worker's yearly income from $10,000 to $17,000 a year," Kunichoff writes. Publix and Ahold, have refused to sign on to the principles, saying "they source many of their tomatoes from growers who cooperate with the CIW," Kunichoff writes. (Read more)

No comments:

Post a Comment