Boston area Fair Food activists come together at an event hosted by Moishe/Kavod Jewish Social Justice House on Martin Luther King Day. Young people learned about the Campaign for Fair Food and then made signs for the march. Photo by Sarah Berry

Food Justice movements unite!: Josh Viertel, President of Slow Food USA, to march with CIW, speak on Feb. 27th at Boston protest…

Ahold Vice President Harriet Hentges throws fuel on the fire in meeting with Fair Food delegation at headquarters outside Boston…

Things are really hopping in Boston and Tampa as students and youth, people of faith, labor activists, and community members are spreading the word and mobilizing their families and friends to join workers from Immokalee this Feb. 27th in Boston and March 4-5th in Tampa on the “Do the Right Thing Tour“!

Here’s a dispatch straight from our organizing team on the ground in freezing, snowy Boston:

“Things have been going very, very well here in the snowy tundra that is Northeastern Massachusetts. All of our student and faith allies are very excited and working hard on outreach, down to hang up posters and pass out flyers, and just very helpful overall. Also, our delegation of faith allies was finally able to meet with (Ahold VP) Harriet Hentges yesterday. Seeing her absolute unwillingness to participate has made them all the more determined to get lots of people out for the 27th. See many of you soon, when hopefully we’ve gotten all of this snow/sleet/and icy rain out of our system. The city is already over 20″ over its average annual snowfall, and the piles lining the curbs are getting to be taller than I am. Yesterday I came across a giant mound and couldn’t be positive that there wasn’t a car buried underneath. But come February 27th, we are keeping our fingers crossed for 30º+ and sunny!” (picture above was taken from the organizing team’s window)

Also, in late breaking news from Boston, Josh Viertel, President of Slow Food USA, will be joining us for the Feb. 27th march and speaking at the rally following the march outside Stop and Shop’s Brigham Circle store! This is great news, as Slow Food USA is a deep and fast-growing movement “for good, clean, fair food” with thousands of members in the northeast. It’s an important and natural alliance that will amplify the call for Fair Food not only in the northeast, but throughout the country.

Boston faith allies deliver hundreds of postcards to Stop & Shop headquarters in Boston last November.

Finally, one last note from the preparations in Boston: In the dispatch above, you’ll notice the organizing team referred to a meeting between faith allies and Ahold Vice President Harriet Hentges that took place this week. It seems the meeting didn’t go particularly well.

And that is probably an understatement. Here’s the breakdown:

As the latest massive snowstorm pummeled the northeast, a delegation from Boston’s interfaith community — including members of the Boston Faith and Justice Network, the Jewish Labor Committee, the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action, the Refugee Immigration Ministry, and others — braved the weather to visit Ahold USA’s headquarters in nearby Quincy. After months of trying to secure an appointment, the purpose of the delegation was to speak with Harriet Hentges, Ahold USA’s Vice President for Corporate Responsibility, about the supermarket chain’s refusal to sign a Fair Food agreement with the CIW.

The delegation shared its frank criticisms of Ahold’s free-riding approach to social responsibility in its tomato supply chain, insisting that the company’s own Standards of Engagement were not an acceptable alternative to participating in the CIW’s Fair Food program, especially in light of November’s breakthrough with the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange. Ms. Hentges, for her part, shrugged off Ahold’s responsibility to act and instead said it was the duty of government agencies and tomato growers themselves to improve wages and working conditions for the men and women who harvest the tomatoes sold in her company’s Giant and Stop & Shop grocery stores.

While the meeting ended much where it started in terms of Ahold’s position, the delegation made a strong impression and communicated its deepening resolve to mobilize for the upcoming “March to Stop Sweatshops” on February 27th in Boston. In the words of Anthony Zuba, leader of the Massachusetts Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice:

“We left Harriet and Tim [Reardon] no doubt that the communities of Greater Boston will continue to educate consumers about the farmworkers’ struggle. And these consumers will make their voices heard on Feb. 27. As beneficiaries of the farmworkers’ labor, Ahold cannot disown its moral and ethical obligation to them! We will insist that Ahold recognize the workers represented by the CIW as rightful partners in the process of ensuring their own well-being.”

Nicely done, Ahold Corporate Responsibility Team! Nothing alienates customers like icy intransigence…

Come back soon for an update from Tampa!