America's Tomorrow: Tomato Workers in Florida Remake an Industry

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.policylink.org/focus-areas/equitable-economy/americas-tomorrow-newsletters/tomato-workers-in-florida-remake-an-industry

May 22, 2014




Tomato Workers in Florida Remake an Industry

Jon Esformes, one of the largest tomato producers in the nation, is a vocal champion for a worker-led campaign to remake his industry and create good jobs for some of the most vulnerable people in America. Why? Because raising the floor for farmworkers will help grow his business and reinvigorate a once-dominant industry struggling in the face of global competition.

By forging alliances with businesses like his, all along the tomato supply chain, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has achieved groundbreaking victories to improve wages and working conditions in Florida fields. The group has signed agreements with nearly all the growers in Florida, the nation's leading fresh tomato producer, and with a dozen of the largest tomato buyers in the world, including McDonald's, Burger King, Whole Foods and, most recently, Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart sells about 20 percent of the nation's fresh tomatoes, and said it will work with the coalition to extend the high-road standards to other states and other crops in its supply chain.

How fair food benefits all

The agreements are wins for all the players. For about 30,000 Florida farmworkers, most of them from Mexico, Guatemala, and Haiti, there are pay hikes of $60 to $80 a week during harvest season and dramatic improvements in workplace safety and dignity.

FULL story at link.