Friday, November 16, 2012


The real news coming out of Florida's fields today...
Workers learn about their rights under the Fair Food Program during a worker-to-worker education session on an Immokalee area farm. An article in The Atlantic by food writer Barry Estabrook, "Tomato School: Undoing the Evils of the Fields," reports on a recent education session and the impact of the Fair Food Program on the Florida tomato industry, describing the industry's trajectory from "one of the most repressive employers in the country... to being on the road to becoming the most progressive group in the fruit and vegetable industry."
Farm labor advances under Fair Food Program spark call for Thanksgiving Supermarket Week of Action
For many years, farmworkers from Immokalee traveled the country speaking with consumers in churches and synagogues, university classrooms and community centers, with one goal – to inform people about the brutal reality of exploitation behind the tomatoes in their tacos, burgers, and produce aisles. And for years, a battle raged between the CIW and the Florida tomato growers over that reality, with workers fighting to expose the truth and growers struggling to keep it under wraps.
While the fighting continued, the conditions only grew worse.
From Conflict to Collaboration in the Fields
But that all changed almost two years ago to the day, when, on November 16th, 2010, the CIW and the FTGE signed an historic agreement to work together to build the Fair Food Program, the CIW’s ambitious plan to harness the power of every major level of the supply chain – from consumers and retail buyers at the top to growers and farmworkers at the bottom – to construct a verifiable, enforceable, and sustainable system for social responsibility...
Visit the CIW website for more on the quiet revolution of the Fair Food Program and the call to action for the Thanksgiving week of protests and delegations!

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