Make a gift to the Fair Food Program by clicking here!
The food at our tables this holiday season comes with a story.
For far too many farmworkers around the country, that story is fraught with inhumane working conditions – sexual assault, wage theft, exposure to life-threatening heat waves, and in the worst cases, forced labor. Extreme exploitation and abuse are disturbingly common in the industry.
It is high time to re-write the story of our food – and farmworkers themselves are becoming the authors of a brand-new, and much brighter, chapter.
For workers covered by the enforceable protections of the award-winning, worker-driven Fair Food Program, the fields have become a place defined by dignity, respect, and safety. The women and men who pick our food work free of forced labor and sexual assault, have access to life-saving heat stress protections, and have collectively received nearly $45 million in economic relief through the Fair Food bonus.
But the story does not end there. Tens of thousands of farmworkers across the United States remain vulnerable to harassment, violence, and grinding poverty beyond the Fair Food Program’s reach, and, with your help, we can expand the Fair Food Program and bring a new day of human rights to all of America’s fields.
This Giving Tuesday, consider giving the gift of prevention. Make a gift to the Fair Food Program by clicking here!
TOP STORIES
FEATURED VIDEOS
RECENT NEWS
Calling all members of the Fair Food Nation! Take action to demand justice for farmworkers by contacting Kroger and demanding the grocery giant join the Fair Food Program! Earlier this year, Kroger – who has long resisted the call from farmworkers and consumers to join the award-winning Fair Food Program to prevent human rights abuses – was identified by the Department of Labor as a purchaser of watermelons harvested by modern-day slaves in the latest federal slavery prosecution to come out of Florida, US v. Moreno. While harvesting watermelons and other produce, these workers in Kroger’s own supply chain were trapped […]
Fair Food Nation! Stand with farmworkers this Thanksgiving season for a week of action to demand Kroger join the Fair Food Program! For many of us, Thanksgiving is a time of year when we pause to give thanks, spend time with friends and family, and enjoy the feast that marks the start of the holiday season. But in Immokalee and across the country, farmworkers and their allies in the Campaign for Fair Food also celebrate another tradition, as we remember and honor the hard work of the men and women whose undervalued labor has put food on Thanksgiving tables for […]
Among the key findings in the report: “Workers describe indicators of forced labor on certified farms without detection. This report gathers testimony on a farm that carries dual FTUSA and EFI certification. Workers describe conditions that check off nearly every one of the ILO’s indicators of forced labor.” Farmworker on EFI and FTUSA-certified farm: “I do not feel that there is trust enough to put in my complaint because I know that I am going to suffer retaliation tomorrow.” A new report from Corporate Accountability Lab details the myriad failures of the Equitable Food Initiative (EFI) and Fair Trade USA […]
Leo Perez, CIW: “We see the Fair Food Program as… both a method of education… to share information with workers about these risks, and at the same time as a tool for workers to protect themselves against the worst effects of climate change on a day-to-day basis.” Oscar Londoño, executive director of WeCount: “We look to [the Fair Food Program] for best practices in terms of how can agricultural employers already begin to implement these kinds of protections.” Each passing harvest season seems to be hotter than the last, and to bring with it more dangers for the farmworkers who […]
Lupe Gonzalo in Rebel Girls: “Food doesn’t come to the grocery store by magic. It comes from people. It comes from farmworkers.” ALSO: Congratulations to longtime CIW and FFP ally Susan Carter, much-deserved recipient of the Alvin R. Huntley Social Justice Award! As recognition grows for the remarkable trajectory of the Immokalee farmworker community over the past 30 years — from a marginalized, powerless farm labor reserve hidden in the swamps of south Florida to birthplace of the new, 21st-century paradigm for human rights protection in corporate supply chains around the globe — the inspiring stories of the individual farmworkers […]
Antonia Rios in The New York Times: “The most beautiful thing is knowing all of the other workers, chatting with them, learning about their lives and their experiences. Many have left their families in order to put food on the table.” Silvia Perez, CIW staff and friend of Antonia: “Antonia was a powerful woman. She was a strong woman. She always believed in the dignity and the justice for workers.” Today, we mark a month since the incalculable loss of our dear friend, Antonia Rios Hernandez, whose bright light in our community was extinguished all too suddenly in a terrible accident […]
U.S. Department of Agriculture recognizes Worker-Driven Social Responsibility (WSR) as highest form of human rights protection in agriculture; WSR, Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs) officially designated “Platinum” level labor protection in new USDA guestworker expansion pilot program, singled out for ability to “promote accountability and improve working conditions for domestic and H-2A workers alike…”; USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack: “The program will provide incentives designed to simultaneously benefit workers and employers, with the potential to inform the H-2A program, raise labor standards for farmworkers, and help alleviate our agricultural workforce challenges over the long term.” In the final weeks of September, the […]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CIW Co-Founder Lucas Benitez to receive Wallenberg Medal for Achievements in Human Rights on October 10, joining the company of previous medal recipients Rep. John Lewis, Elie Wiesel, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama among others Lucas Benitez: “I am immeasurably honored and humbled to receive the Wallenberg Medal in recognition of our efforts to forge a new paradigm for the protection of fundamental human rights from the fields to factories around the globe.” IMMOKALEE – Lucas Benitez, co-founder of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, is set to be awarded the Wallenberg Medal by […]
Calling all members of the Fair Food Nation! Today is the day to demand justice for farmworkers by contacting Kroger and demanding the grocery giant join the Fair Food Program! A year ago today, the notorious crewleader of Los Villatoros’ harvesting company, Bladimir Moreno, pleaded guilty to the federal charge of conspiracy to commit forced labor. Under Moreno, more than a dozen workers were held in forced labor, compelled to harvest watermelon as well as other fruits and vegetables that ended up on our kitchen tables. In a shocking revelation, the US Department of Labor named the supermarkets that profited […]
We are just two days away from the call-in day of September 27, when the Fair Food Nation will call on Kroger to demand they join the Presidential Medal-winning Fair Food Program in light of well-documented cases of modern-day slavery in Kroger’s supply chain. Ready to go? Here are five ways YOU can join farmworkers and the Fair Food Nation to easily participate on September 27: 1. Call Kroger Dial 1-800-576-4377 To speak with a service representative, press 8 then 3 after listening to the menu options. Once they are on the line, let them know that it’s time for […]