Today, on his birthday, we celebrate the life of Cesar Chavez, a visionary leader for the struggle for immigrant worker justice in the United States. Chavez and his co-organizer for United Farm Workers, Dolores Huerta, were the pioneers of the inspiring protest chant that we still use today: "Si Se Puede!" (it CAN be done!). For more about the amazing life of Cesar Chavez, check out the UFW website
Today, OxFam America sent out a press release announcing a new report ("a unique for-profit/NGO collaboration") from UFW and corporate food company Bon Appetit management (who say on their website that they were invited by CIW to witness the farmworker conditions in Florida and set to work right away, inspired, on a code of conduct.
The Inventory of Farmworker Issues and Protections in the United States is the product of a unique for-profit/NGO joint venture of the Bon Appétit Management Company Foundation and United Farm Workers (UFW), with support from Oxfam America. By compiling and analyzing data from multiple federal, state, and private sources, it renders the most comprehensive picture yet of the reality faced by America’s least-valued yet critically important workforce.
Key issues faced by the nation's 1.4 million crop farmworkers:
- Farmworkers are exempt from most federal wage and hour standards, and even existing regulations are rarely enforced, leading to rampant wage theft and other abuses.
- Children as young as 12 are legally allowed to engage in farm work, although it is one of the most dangerous employment sectors.
- Widespread use of subcontractors leads to lack of transparency and difficulty enforcing existing laws.
- Health and safety standards are inadequate, and even those that exist are rarely enforced.
- Most farmworkers are ineligible for unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation insurance that is granted to employees in other sectors.
- Farmworkers are explicitly excluded from laws that protect collective bargaining and free association.
In summary, the U.S. food supply depends on the labor of a socially and economically marginalized population working in often appalling, sometimes abusive conditions.
Bon Appétit Management Company, known for its pioneering efforts toward more sustainable food sourcing, has long wanted to add farmworker welfare to its list of core values. “But when we began questioning our suppliers about the human element in how the food was produced, we discovered they knew very little about the people who actually harvested it,” said Maisie Greenawalt, vice president of strategy, Bon Appétit Management Company. “They thought that the lack of data about violations or abuses meant that there was no problem. Our partnership with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida had opened our eyes that this was not the case. We helped develop this report as a first step toward being able to direct our purchasing power to operations that treat their agricultural employees with certifiable dignity and fairness.”
The UFW, the largest and oldest farmworkers union in the United States, hopes that through the Inventory it can motivate consumers to help bring justice to the millions of workers who toil in our fields. By exercising the substantial power they wield over the stores and restaurants they patronize, consumers can compel agricultural employers to treat farmworkers with the dignity and respect we demand of one another every day.
Bon Appétit and United Farm Workers would like to see the data compiled by the report lead to the development of verifiable and enforceable standards for farm work that can be supported by both individual consumers and socially responsible corporations.
“Thirty-nine years ago, César Chávez coined the phrase 'Si se puede!'” ['Yes, we can!'] — a reminder that each of us is the keeper of César's legacy,” said UFW President Arturo S. Rodriguez. “The greatest monument to César Chávez isn’t on a street sign or an official holiday. It’s having the courage to work for change that he instilled in his own people and in millions of others who never worked on a farm.”
America's cheap and abundant food system is the envy of the world, but it cannot continue to rely on an invisible underclass of exploited laborers. Until we acknowledge this and take steps to grant farmworkers the same legal protections in the workplace as those in other U.S. occupations, we will never have a food system that is truly sustainable, fair, and healthy for all.
The executive summary and full report, along with high-resolution photos of farmworkers, can be downloaded from http://bamco.com/page/114/
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I think it's a totally interesting idea to do a report in this way- perhaps the other corporate food people will be inspired to action seeing the opportunity for collaboration. TW.
In the meantime, we continue to support workers in struggle for justice!
Si se puede! Si se puede!
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