June 4, 2012
#1 is done: Chipotle countdown a wrap!
Chipotle changes its tune... but the public just keeps on singing the same song!
When we first launched the Top Ten List of Falsehoods, Fibs, and Fabrications in Chipotle's Answer to a Customer's Email about the Campaign for Fair Food, we had planned, after nine weeks of meticulously deconstructing Chipotle's misleading missive, to end on a somewhat lighthearted note. But then Chipotle went and changed its response to questions about the Campaign for Fair Food, and the company's new answer -- though in many ways an implicit admission of the first email's outrageous overreaching -- requires its own rejoinder.
[For those of you who might be curious, the original idea for #1 on the countdown was a post about Chipotle's mistaken identification of Immokalee as a county in Florida (Immokalee is in fact an unincorporated community, one of the country's poorest towns), underscoring the irony that, in an email in which Chipotle asks its customers to believe that the burrito king understands farmworker reality better than the workers themselves do, the company can't even accurately locate Immokalee on a map...]
Chipotle's new response to inquiries about the Campaign is a trimmer, decidedly more humble explanation of its refusal to sign a Fair Food Agreement. Gone are the company's risible claims of having single-handedly reformed the Florida tomato industry (#'s 4 and 5 on the List), its declaration of longstanding support for the CIW (#6), its contention that the CIW is seeking to control its entire supply chain (#9). And, on balance, that's good. At least someone has been reading the List these past two months.
But the new response introduces a twist that simply cannot go unchallenged. Here's one iteration of it, from an interview of Chipotle spokesperson Chris Arnold by the Miami New Times:
"'What's important to understand about the nature of this issue,' he starts, 'is that when the CIW started their program in the mid-1990's, they were originally targeting growers. Then they switched gears, targeting large-scale buyers like Chipotle, or McDonald's, or Taco Bell... to get the buyers to put economic pressure on the growers so the growers would change their practices.
'Now more than 90% of all the tomatoes grown in Florida are grown under CIW's program; so in effect, they won. Anyone who wants to participate in their program can, and we've been doing that since 2009. We only work with growers who have signed on with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. We're working directly with growers rather than through an agreement with CIW. The result is the same in terms of benefits to the workers...'" read more
The first paragraph reflects the more accurate, less absurdly Chipotle-centric, history of the Campaign for Fair Food and the reform of the Florida tomato industry. This appears, at first blush, to be a significant step in the right direction for Chipotle's PR department after its disastrous effort to imply that Chipotle had somehow played a central role in bringing about the changes in Florida's fields. However reluctantly, Chipotle seems to have finally realized that it was nothing more than an extra, not the lead actor it would have its customers believe, in the history of the farmworkers' struggle for human rights in Florida, a history now in its third decade.
But then we get to the second paragraph.
It's in that second paragraph that Chipotle takes it upon itself to define not only what constitutes victory in the Campaign for Fair Food, but also -- and this is the real heart of the matter when it comes to Chipotle -- what it means to "participate" in the Fair Food Program.
On the question of "victory", Chipotle is, quite simply, wrong. Yes, 90% of the growers are participating, but that is only one part of the equation. In the Campaign for Fair Food, victory is a multi-factor proposition: Change = Workers + Consumers + Growers + Buyers doing their part to improve farm labor wages and working conditions. Workers, Consumers, and Growers are on board, as are many of the Buyers, but as long as Chipotle and the supermarket giants -- companies like Publix, Kroger, Giant, Stop & Shop, and Safeway -- refuse to sign Fair Food agreements, full and sustainable change will remain an elusive goal toward which we will not stop working.
Even if Chipotle declares victory for us.
On the question of what it means to "participate" in the Fair Food Program, here again Chipotle tries to talk its way out of truly doing its part. Participation is not simply paying the penny per pound and buying from participating growers. Participation is also making a binding commitment to do those things, and agreeing to allow for verification of the company's performance of its commitment. Otherwise, what is to keep Chipotle from reversing its course once the public attention wanes, since it was public attention that got Chipotle to pay the penny in the first place?
It isn't difficult to demonstrate that full and sustainable participation is only possible with a binding commitment and verification. Just ask yourself: What would happen if all the buyers were to follow Chipotle's approach? The resulting patchwork of unenforceable promises would fall apart the minute it was tested, and we have not come this far to build a future of Fair Food on a foundation of empty assurances.
No matter how strong Chipotle's faith in its own integrity may be.
The strategy behind Chipotle's latest response seems obvious: Strip away the ridiculous claims (they've become a liability, anyway), and stick to the idea that the battle for farmworkers' rights has been won, the Campaign for Fair Food is over, and whether the workers in Immokalee are capable of realizing it or not, it's time now for conscientious consumers to move on. [Ed note: Have you noticed Chipotle's convenient habit of assuming that farmworkers aren't capable of accurately analyzing their own situation? Must be a confusion left over from all those years of working to improve farm animals' rights.]
Should be interesting to see how this new strategy works out for them. Couldn't be much worse than the last one.
Next up: After two months of the Chipotle Countdown, what are Chipotle's customers saying about the company's refusal to sign a Fair Food agreement? We'll hear from some of the nearly 65,000 people who sent emails to Chipotle through the sumofus.org e-action alert, including some pretty piquant points of view...
May 30, 2012
Chipotle List #2 ready for your inspection...
CIW members and allies protest outside a Baltimore Chipotle two weeks ago, while a young consumer looks on and considers food from a whole new perspective.
#2: "... we only purchase our tomatoes from growers who have signed on with the CIW."
Fact: That may or may not be the case, but we'll just have to take Chipotle's word for it. We don't have the right to audit their purchases because we don't have a Fair Food Agreement with Chipotle.
Chipotle's approach to the Fair Food Program can be summarized in two words: "Trust us."
No partnership. No verification. No commitment. Just Chipotle promising that it will do the right thing.
If this sounds familiar, maybe that's because it's been tried before, though to that company's credit, it didn't take long before they came to realize that a true partnership with farmworkers is indispensable to any genuine effort to transform farm labor conditions.
Chipotle, on the other hand, hasn't learned that lesson quite yet.
And so people who crave "farmworker justice with their burritos" -- like the fine people of the Twin Cities pictured here on the right, who recently delivered a letter to the manager of a local Chipotle restaurant and wrote a fantastic blog post about it -- continue to try to teach Chipotle the true meaning of the expression "food with integrity."
Meanwhile Chipotle continues its one-man show of compliance with the Fair Food Code of Conduct. And no one's clapping.
Chipotle's produce broker (whom they share with McDonald's) submits monthly reports to the Fair Food Standards Council (FFSC), as do Participating Buyers in the Fair Food Program. The FFSC's accounting department then analyzes these reports, not only to check for compliance (for example, is the Buyer purchasing from a suspended or nonparticipating grower), but also to cross-check and reconcile these reports with Participating Growers' reports in order to gain a full picture of the transactions under the Fair Food Program.
The principal difference between Chipotle and the ten Participating Buyers contractually committed to the Fair Food Program, however, is that the other ten buyers have agreed to verify their purchases. In other words, they're not just saying, "Trust us." Instead, they are held to a very real standard of transparency that encourages accuracy. By signing a Fair Food Agreement, they have entered into a binding commitment to pay a premium on all their Florida tomato purchases and to buy only from Participating Growers, a commitment that can be verified and enforced, a commitment Chipotle won't make.
Chipotle, by its own design, has no direct contact with the FFSC, so you can forget about FFSC auditors showing up at the burrito giant's Denver headquarters for an audit of its tomato purchases anytime soon. The exchange of information between the two parties, such as it is, is filtered through a broker that answers to Chipotle. As a result, the FFSC is left with reports which may or may not tell the whole story about Chipotle's tomato supply chain. Even assuming the reports submitted by the broker accurately reflect its knowledge of Chipotle's Florida tomato purchases, there would be nothing to keep Chipotle from simultaneously using additional undisclosed brokers to purchase some large or small percentage of its Florida tomatoes totally outside the purview of the Fair Food Program, thereby denying farmworkers the "penny per pound" on all those purchases.
And that's exactly the point. Without a commitment to transparency, there can be no verification or legitimate claims of compliance.
And that will never satisfy people truly looking to consume "food with integrity," especially since real integrity, when it comes to farm labor justice, is just an agreement away. We'll give our friends in Minneapolis the final word in this update:
"... Similar to Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, Chipotle has built a reputation for providing food with integrity. It’s amazing that they are willing to put that reputation on the line by resisting collaboration with CIW. Chipotle claims that they are instituting all of the conditions of the code of conduct; they just don’t want to sign the agreement with CIW. Yet without allowing for third-party verification, and given Chipotle’s history of questionable statements about its actions in support of farmworkers, Chipotle’s claims simply don’t have credence." read more
May 28, 2012
Another Lakeland community leader takes a stand, calls on Publix to join Fair Food Program!
The Rev. Andy Oliver, a United Methodist Elder from Lakeland, pens a powerful reflection on Publix and supply chain accountability, or "What Publix can learn from Apple"...
Despite Publix's almost iconic status in Lakeland, the central Florida community where the $28 billion grocery giant was founded back in 1930, more and more community leaders are taking a critical look at their hometown supermarket and finding it wanting when it comes to the treatment of farmworkers in its supply chain.
The latest such expression of disappointment with the Lakeland-based chain comes from the Rev. Andy Oliver, a United Methodist Elder who preached for some time at one of Lakeland's biggest churches. Rev. Oliver compares Publix's response to the Campaign for Fair Food to computer giant Apple's response to allegations of worker abuse at Foxconn, the Chinese factory where its iphones, ipods, and ipads are produced. He begins by describing Apple's decision to launch an investigation in to the complaints at Foxconn and the position taken by Apple CEO Tim Cook who, "welcomed the report and agreed to support its recommendations." He quoted the Apple CEO -- "We think empowering workers and helping them understand their rights is essential" -- and gave Apple "kudos... for investigating all the way down the supply chain, even if it might cut into their profit margin. This is a game changer that I hope will not only change Foxconn, but factories in the rest of China and the world."
Then he turns to Publix. After describing the "deplorable" labor conditions in Florida's fields, and expressing his frustration with Publix's decision to spread disinformation about the Campaign for Fair Food through a "whisper campaign" employing local surrogates rather than address those conditions, he concludes:
"... Publix is just as responsible for people at the beginning of the supply chain as they are for CEO Crenshaw’s salary. They are just as responsible as Nike was for those shoes being made in sweat shops. They are just as responsible as Apple is for the conditions at Foxconn.
The conversation is changing. As more and more people become aware of working conditions in Immokalee and other farms they are starting to ask questions about where their food comes from. Grocery stores do everything they can to not make you think about where your food comes from, but a more socially conscious people are starting to ask those questions. Award winning documentaries, “Payback” and “Food Chain” are about to raise the conversation to a higher level and a wider audience. More people are going to start to demand that Publix act more like Apple.
The difference between Apple and Publix is that Apple is doing something about it, even from half a world away. No one expects either Apple or Publix to fix injustice overnight, but we want them to honestly try. Publix has something to learn from Apple’s example. And if you don’t think that farm worker wages and conditions is Publix’s business, then I have a great job for you picking tomatoes on a farm in Immokalee." read more
It is a must-read article, which you can find in its entirety here. Don't miss it.
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