Extreme Makeover: Florida tomato industry edition…

[hupso_hide][hupso title=”#Florida tomato industry makeover – a 2 pt reflection…” url=”https://ciw-online.org/?p=18988″]

then
Before: The CIW’s Modern-Day Slavery Museum visits Washington, DC in June of 2010
now
After: CIW members celebrate new rights under Fair Food Program in Lakeland in March of 2013

In the space of just a few years, the CIW’s Fair Food Program has transformed the Florida tomato industry and created a “model” for the protection of human rights in global supply chains “elsewhere in the world.”

How could something so good for business make the US Chamber of Commerce so mad?  A reflection in two parts…

Introduction

In January of this year, the CIW signed its twelfth Fair Food agreement with a multi-billion dollar food industry leader, this time with the multi-billion-dollar-est of them all, Walmart.

Walmart representatives John Amaya (left), Tom Leech (center) and CIW’s Lucas Benitez, Gerardo Reyes Chavez, and Nely Rodriguez (far right) sign historic agreement at a Lipman Produce farm outside of Immokalee.

The agreement symbolized the almost unimaginable transformation that has taken place in the Florida tomato industry over the past several years as a result of the Fair Food Program on several levels:

  • on the retailer level, Walmart was the first major retailer to sign a Fair Food Agreement not as the result of a public campaign of any kind, but thanks, rather, to the demonstrated success of the Fair Food Program at eliminating longstanding human rights violations in the Florida tomato industry;
  • on the grower level, the fact that the agreement was signed at a packing shed on a local tomato farm was a compelling reflection of the powerful new partnership that has taken root and begun to flourish under the Fair Food Program;
  • on the worker level, the CIW’s place at the table in the Florida tomato industry, as an equal voice in the decisions that affect workers in the fields, was cemented with that twelfth agreement;
  • on the consumer level, Florida tomato purchases can now be made with full confidence that the fruit was grown and harvested under the highest, most rigorously monitored and enforced human rights standards in the nation.

That confidence was underscored by the participation at the Walmart signing ceremony of the Chairperson of the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights, Alexandra Guaqueta.  In a statement on behalf of the UN Working Group, the Chairperson explained that she was attending the ceremony “to support the Immokalee workers and the Fair Food Program, which offers such promise for us all.”  She went on to praise the Program’s “smart mix” of monitoring and enforcement tools, including “market incentives for growers and retailers, monitoring policies and, crucially, a robust and accessible mechanism to resolve complaints and provide remedy.”  She concluded her remarks, “We are eager to see whether the Fair Food Program is able to leverage further change within participating businesses, and serve as a model elsewhere in the world.” 

In light of this unprecedented progress to date — and of the promise of still much more to come in the months and years ahead as the Program prepares to expand outside of Florida and to crops beyond tomatoes — why in the world has the US Chamber of Commerce suddenly decided to attack the CIW and the Fair Food Program?  

Over the past several months, the Chamber of Commerce and other business lobby groups have “mounted an aggressive campaign,” in the words of the New York Times, aimed at compromising the credibility of the CIW and other low wage worker organizations and, in the case of the CIW, attempting to undermine the ability of Fair Food Program to do its essential work of protecting the human rights of tens of thousands of farmworkers in Florida’s fields.  

Why has a social responsibility partnership that has proven so effective in eliminating longstanding business risks like sexual harassment and modern-day slavery — risks that threatened to cripple an entire industry just a few short years ago — come under such intense fire from an organization that is dedicated to advancing the interests of business?  

And why has a DC-based, industry-funded attack group like the “Worker Center Watch” (right) gone as far as to apparently try to plant a communist flag at a CIW rally in Washington last November in an effort to discredit the CIW?

In the days ahead, we will try to answer these questions as we take a closer look at this counterintuitive conundrum in a two-part series.

In Part One, we will examine the remarkable transformation that has taken place in the Florida tomato industry since January, 2011, when the Fair Food Program was launched in over 90% of Florida’s fields, and we will compare that transformation to the news coming from Florida’s most important competitor, the Mexican tomato industry, over that same period.  That analysis should allow us to take the measure of the competitive advantage, or disadvantage, the FFP has come to represent for Florida tomato growers, to get a sense of the business argument for the Fair Food Program.

In Part Two, we’ll look at the US Chamber of Commerce and Worker Center Watch attacks on the CIW and analyze those attacks in light of the unprecedented changes taking place in Florida’s fields.  We will ask why some of the country’s largest businesses have declared themselves “proud to be partners with the CIW” and have publicly defended the CIW in response to the attacks, while business lobbyists in the nation’s capital simultaneously spend untold fortunes in an attempt to undermine that partnership.  

It is an illogical turn of events that speaks to the very worst instincts of some in the American business world, the knee-jerk reaction that views any gain for workers as necessarily a loss for business, the inflexible perspective according to which business interests are pitted against human rights in a bitter, zero-sum conflict.  

But it is a turn of events that also casts light on a growing divide in the business world, one that, happily, provides real hope for a future in which protecting the human rights of workers is seen as not just the right thing to do, but good for business, too.  

So check back soon for Part One of this series, in which we look at the truly fundamental changes brought about by the Fair Food Program in just a few short years and contrast that change to the situation in Mexico.  And to end today’s introduction on the right note, we wanted to give the last words of this post to Jon Esformes (pictured below speaking from a stage alongside CIW members during a health fair on his farm last December).  Jon is the Operating Partner of Pacific Tomato Growers, the first Florida tomato grower to sign a Fair Food agreement with the CIW.  In a statement issued in response to the recent attacks on the CIW, Jon explained why he, as a business owner, has chosen to join forces with the Fair Food Program, and we would like to share those words with you today:

jon

Statement from Pacific Tomato Growers, participating grower in the Fair Food Program:

In response to the recent press regarding the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, we at Pacific Tomato Growers wish to be included in the public conversation.  As a fourth generation family owned agricultural company with over 2000 employees we are on the front lines of farming in the United States, and while significant gains have been made over the years to hold the agricultural industry to the same standards of fairness that other U.S. industries enjoy there is no doubt that there has been a lag which has led to horrible crimes having been committed against agricultural workers.

Over the years Pacific Tomato Growers has worked to develop and implement a strategy, supported by a fully developed and empowered Human Resource Department, to search out the gaps in our system to ensure that every employee at Pacific enjoys the same right to a safe and fair workplace that all Americans are entitled to.

In October of 2010, in an effort to expand our commitment, Pacific Tomato Growers became the first large-scale grower to sign a direct agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.  It is a partnership that we are proud of, honored by and grateful for.

Over the last three years the Coalition and The Fair Foods Standards Council have become critical components of our efforts to continue to provide to our employees the safest work place environment in agriculture.  The FFSC audits are, without question, the most thorough and comprehensive audits our companies go through. From interviewing employees, visiting fields and training centers, to the financial payroll audit (which is done to trace premium payments received by Pacific and passed thru directly to our employees) the FFSC consistently helps us to build a better company.

In closing let me just say that we have all experienced tremendous upheaval over these last six years.  Truly these have been difficult times. Times that require partnership, not divisiveness.  Times that require us coming together in the search for solutions. Pacific Tomato Growers remains committed to that belief and is grateful to have The Coalition and The Fair Foods Standards Council as partners in those efforts.

– Jon Esformes, Operating Partner, Pacific Tomato Growers

 Check back soon for Part One!