Farm Workers' Wages to Increase Under Labor Agreement

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/25/AR2009092502278.html

By Jane Black
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 25, 2009; 2:34 PM

In what Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis called a "huge victory" for farm workers, one of the country's largest food service companies announced Friday that it will buy winter tomatoes only from growers that pay a fair wage and offer good working conditions.

The Compass Group, which buys 10 million pounds of tomatoes annually, will pay an additional 1.5 cents per pound for all the tomatoes it purchases; one cent per pound will go directly to the workers.

That might not sound like a lot. But it will boost workers' wages from 50 cents for a 32-pound bucket to 82 cents per bucket, a 64 percent raise. The decision, made in partnership with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a South Florida farm workers organization, also includes a strict code of conduct to monitor hours worked and employee safety. East Coast Growers and Packers, the third-largest tomato grower in Florida, has agreed to Compass's terms.

"The future of Florida agriculture is contained within this agreement," said Lucas Benitez, co-founder of the CIW. "It is a future founded on mutual respect and mutual benefit."

The Compass agreement is another sign of how American companies are expanding their definitions of sustainability. This year, Starbucks launched a multimillion-dollar ad campaign trumpeting the ethical production of its coffee. In March, Unilever announced that all the tea sold under the Lipton brand had been certified by the Rainforest Alliance, a nonprofit organization that mandates worker welfare standards.

FULL story at link.

[panader0]

1. Wow--64%

32 pounds amounts to quite a few tomatoes. Farm workers deserve the raise, and more.

[demosincebirth]

2. You're darn right! I remember, in Sept and Oct., as youngster

my father and I used to leave Friday (after school), from Oakland to the central Valley and pick tomato's all day Sat and Sun in the scorching central valley heat, just to make some extra money for the family. That was in the early fifties when the pay was 25 cents a Lug. It took a lot of picking to fill a lug, then drag it to the loader.

[cabluedem]

3. They dont pick tomatoes that way anymore. One picking machine and 5 people onboard. nt