Despite repatriation of tomato purchases from Mexico, the imperative remains the same: Farmworkers in Wendy’s supply chains must be protected by the Fair Food Program, the only effective human rights program in the agricultural industry!
Following Wendy’s announcement last week that that the company would be repatriating the vast majority of its tomato purchases from Mexico to greenhouses in the US and Canada by the end of the year, many in the media turned to the CIW for an idea of how the news might affect the farmworkers’ demand that Wendy’s join the award-winning Fair Food Program. Because the Campaign for Fair Food had been casting an unrelenting spotlight on Mexico’s horrific human rights record and, in particular, the country’s exceptionally high rate of sexual violence, the questions seemed to suggest that Wendy’s move might somehow satisfy the demands of the farmworkers and their allies.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The ticker-tape parade will have to wait.
Let us be very clear. Wendy’s move to leave Mexico’s produce industry and its culture of violence and corruption was the right one, but it merely remedied its earlier indefensible decision to go to Mexico in the first place. The CIW’s position today is the same as it always has been: Wendy’s must join the Fair Food Program. The farmworkers in Wendy’s tomato supply chain deserve to enjoy the same, best-in-class human rights protections as workers in the supply chains of Wendy’s competitors Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Burger King, and Subway. Nothing about Wendy’s return to purchasing from US producers changes that.
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