Friday, May 25, 2018

Civil Eats on Fair Food Program: “Meet the Farmworkers Leading the #MeToo Fight For Workers Everywhere"

To   
“By rectifying long-standing power imbalances, Worker-driven Social Responsibility drills into the foundation of the problem…”

“No gender-based violence programs have achieved the same amount of leverage in fostering change…”

Earlier this week, Civil Eats published an excellent, feature-length piece based on interviews conducted during the Freedom Fast in New York City that lends critical insight into the endemic, generations-old problem of gender-based violence in the agricultural industry – and the promise that the Worker-driven Social Responsibility model, fulfilled in the Fair Food Program, holds for eradicating such violence in low-wage workplaces around the globe.

UC Berkeley PhD student Vera Chang’s piece, entitled “Meet the Farmworkers Leading the #MeToo Fight For Workers Everywhere,” is one you won’t want to miss. The article, which lucidly weaves through the problem and the proven solution, was picked up by Change.org and blasted out to the whopping 117,000+ that have pledged to boycott Wendy’s. (If you haven’t already signed, take a moment to do so and then share with your networks!).
Today, we are pasting key excerpts from the article, beginning with an exposition of the problem:
… An estimated 500,000 women labor in U.S. fields. On many of the farms where Raquel’s parents worked up and down the East Coast, farmworkers describe coercion, catcalls, groping, and assault from crew leaders, supervisors, and even fellow workers as their “daily bread” in the fields. A study found that four out of five female farmworkers experience sexual violence at work. Women are often dependent on male supervisors for employment, housing, and transportation. Claims against harassers are largely processed by male managers, police officers, and judges, and retaliation for complaints is the norm.

Isolating physically and socially, the informal work environment of commercial agriculture on many farms creates a “hustle culture” that threatens workers’ immediate safety and long-term health. In crop work, for example, portable toilets are often placed far from the fields, a tactic that keeps them from taking breaks, said Nely Rodriguez, a CIW leader. Workers must obtain permission to use the bathroom, which creates uncomfortable situations as women find themselves alone with crew leaders. “It’s easy for unwanted things to happen between the rows. You’re in their territory, so it’s easy for them to find and entrap you. I saw this in my own case,” Rodriguez says, who felt corralled because her former boss carried a pistol.

The advent of CIW’s Fair Food Program has changed that culture significantly; alongside the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements, the Fair Food Program is sparking change for workers and women in many industries…

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