AMERICAN LEFT HISTORY

This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager

Friday, June 29, 2018

Contribute today to match a generous donation and fulfill the promise of WSR! Coalition of Immokalee Workers

Big News! The vast promise of Worker-driven Social Responsibility, and...

… a special matching donation opportunity, today!

You have a lot to be proud of.

The Fair Food Program is the single most effective program for protecting human rights in corporate supply chains in the the world today. That’s not bragging, that’s the opinion of human rights experts from the White House to the United Nations.

Of course, the Fair Food Program — and the unprecedented progress it has brought to tens of thousands of farmworkers in fields from Florida to New Jersey — would never have been possible without your support. You know this, because you have fought for years, side by side with workers, to build the FFP.

But what you may not know is that the Worker-driven Social Responsibility model that the Fair Food Program gave rise to has already brought life-changing progress to countless more workers, from the garment factories of Bangladesh to the dairy farms of Vermont. And today, the WSR model stands poised to expand its life-changing protections to millions of more workers across the country and around the globe.

With your help, we can turn that vast promise into reality, and today we have some exciting news to share about your opportunity to support: When you become a Sustainer TODAY, your contribution will be matched — up to $5,000 — by two current Sustainers and long-time allies! The Sustainers making this generous commitment know that we cannot create safe and dignified workplaces for workers without your financial support, and so they invite you to join them, and us, today, by pledging to double your donation.

The Fair Food Program itself has changed the lives of tens of thousands of farmworkers. The WSR model that emerged from the Program can change the lives of millions more, with your help as a Fair Food Sustainer.

Worker-driven Social Responsibility: A new human rights paradigm for a new century…

“We have worked tirelessly to get here, and now we move forward towards a new day for the industry.”

This triumphant statement marked a watershed agreement between a major corporate retailer and a farmworker human rights organization.

But the worker at the microphone didn’t harvest tomatoes, and the company wasn’t Taco Bell or Walmart. These words were spoken just last year, at the announcement of the landmark agreement between Vermont’s Migrant Justice, an organization representing dairy workers, and the ice cream giant, Ben & Jerry’s. This legal agreement established the foundation of the Milk with Dignity Program, a brand-new human rights program premised on the same mechanisms that had brought about a transformation in the produce industry along the East Coast: worker education, in-depth auditing, a complaint resolution system, and sure-fire market consequences to ensure compliance.

In that moment, the Worker-driven Social Responsibility model, firmly established as a blueprint for change through the success of the Fair Food Program, had officially been replicated in the U.S. beyond the tomato fields.

The Fair Food Program itself has changed the lives of tens of thousands of farmworkers. With your help as a sustaining donor – a donation that will be doubled by a matching donor if you sign up during this week’s drive! – the WSR model can change the lives of millions more workers.

As dairy workers in Vermont showed, the Worker-driven Social Responsibility model holds tremendous promise for addressing abuses in other global supply chains far beyond the fields. And even far beyond the borders of the United States.

Continents away, the Worker-driven Social Responsibility model has taken root and proved its mettle in one of the world’s most notorious low-wage industries: the Bangladeshi garment industry.

The Bangladesh Accord – which came on the heels of a horrifying history of factory fires and collapses that stole the lives of thousands of Bangladeshi workers – established legally-binding agreements between worker organizations and major global retailers to address, once and for all, the health and safety crisis that was being faced on a daily basis by garment workers in the region.

In four short years, the Accord had fixed over three quarters of the safety hazards identified by workers, protecting the lives of 2.4 million workers in the industry.

As one Bangladeshi journalist put it, “ For the first time in Bangladesh’s industrial history, factory inspection started…Factory safety is no longer a ‘Western luxury.'”

Indeed, the dignity and worth of human life – whether a tomato picker, a dairy farmworker, or a garment worker – need not be a luxury, reserved only for the men and women who labor in high-paying, safer industries. The Worker-driven Social Responsibility model has proven that.

Now with a proven, scalable model in hand, we must keep up the momentum, and create a new normal of worker well-being in the global economy. But we cannot do it without you.

Become a Fair Food Sustainer today and help bring the promise of the Worker-driven Social Responsibility model to fields and worksites across the U.S., and the globe.

Coalition of Immokalee Workers

(239) 657 8311 | workers@ciw-online.org | www.ciw-online.org