Tipping Point, Vol. 5: New Jersey puts Wendy’s in the hot seat after Ahold USA joins FFP!

 

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“As Wendy’s modernizes its brand and its “Old Fashioned Burgers” marquees fall away, so too must this old fashioned way of doing business…”

For much of our weeklong “Tipping Point” series, Publix has taken the brunt of consumer contempt for refusing to join the CIW’s Fair Food Program.  But Publix isn’t the only hold out on the receiving end of consumers’ growing ire.

Wendy’s — which stands alone among the country’s five major fast food chains in not joining the Fair Food Program — has also been getting an earful.  As consumers in the northeastern U.S. look forward to seeing the Fair Food label on display in the produce aisles of Giant and Stop & Shop (the two principal companies owned by Ahold USA), they are turning to Wendy’s to demand action for farmworker justice from the fast-food giant.

One northeastern religious leader, Debra Hachen, a rabbi with Beth-El Temple in Jersey City, decided to take her case against Wendy’s to the public.  Following CIW’s first-ever education sessions in New Jersey tomato fields, Debra penned a powerful opinion piece for the widely-circulated Star-Ledger, titled “Stop & Shop’s decision to support farmworkers’ rights displayed on N.J. produce shelves.”  Here is her piece in full:

Stop & Shop’s decision to support farmworkers’ rights displayed on N.J. produce shelves | Opinion

By Debra Hachen

Thousands of consumers throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic celebrated in late July when Ahold USA – parent company to major supermarket chains Stop & Shop, Giant, Martin’s and online grocer Peapod – joined the widely-acclaimed Fair Food Program to address the human rights of farmworkers in its supply chains.

I celebrated, too. Not just as a consumer who might frequent one of the 61 Stop & Shop locations in N.J., but as a rabbi who believes in human dignity and economic justice.

I arrived in Immokalee, Florida, in September, 2011, at a time when the grassroots movement to end the abuse of farmworkers in the tomato fields was at a turning point. Our rabbinic delegation from T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, met for two days with the courageous men and women who had founded the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. We heard of widespread abuses ranging from lack of shade and drinking water in the fields, to sexual harassment and even slavery. We heard from men and women who boarded company buses before dawn to be driven to the fields, then were forced to wait several unpaid hours until the tomatoes were dry enough to be picked. We then went to visit and thank the first farmer who had joined the Fair Food Program, a program to protect workers’ rights. We walked the fields with the Jewish owner, spoke to workers and observed the mechanisms in place to uphold what was just and dignified.

So even more important than the celebrations of consumers this week, were those of farmworkers who will not only benefit from this landmark agreement with Ahold USA, but whose twenty-two year struggle for human rights made it possible for this change to proliferate throughout the fields.

Comprised of primarily Mexican, Guatemalan and Haitian farmworkers, the CIW forged the Fair Food Program by calling on major food retailers to provision their purchases on suppliers’ compliance to a worker-designed code of conduct in the fields. Through worker-led, community-powered campaigns of consistent calls to corporations backed by vibrant, hopeful, direct action, the food retailers came aboard: Taco Bell first, then McDonald’s, on and on, until July 29, when Ahold USA became the 14th behemoth to put its purchasing power behind farmworkers’ vision of an agricultural industry that respects the dignity of every person who works its fields.

Since 2011, when the Fair Food Program first took root in Florida’s tomato fields, tens of thousands of workers have been affected. If the momentum continues apace, the program’s protections could expand to cover hundreds of thousands of workers throughout the country. In fact, last week, the program will touch down on New Jersey soil for the very first time, as the workers pioneering the program arrive here to educate a subset of fellow tomato farm workers on their new rights.

The systemic shift underway is nothing short of dramatic. Where a culture of violence, threats, wage theft and sexual harassment once prevailed, today workers report a growing sense of respect in the fields. The farmworker-designed and implemented Fair Food Program combines a strict code of conduct with worker to worker education, full farm audits, a complaint resolution mechanism and the first real pay increase workers have seen in thirty years. The Washington Post has called the program “one of the great human rights success stories of our day.”

But in order for this success story to fully flourish, corporate holdouts like Wendy’s must come on board. Until then, Wendy’s and others provide an alternative market for farms not adhering to the program’s standards. In other words, they’re more than happy to continue purchasing produce knowing it might have been tainted by the denial of drinking water or sexual abuse. As Wendy’s modernizes its brand and its “Old Fashioned Burgers” marquees fall away, so too must this old fashioned way of doing business, no questions asked.

As I’ve heard farmworkers in Immokalee say, “a new day has dawned in the fields,” and we’re not turning back. It takes all of us, consumers and farmworkers together, to keep moving forward to do what is right. In a few weeks, the Torah reading in synagogues will include the famous verse: “Justice, justice shall you pursue.” Every American can answer that call to justice by supporting the Fair Food Program, a proven way to uphold the rights of all farm workers.

Check back tomorrow for another powerful letter in the “Tipping Point” series!