Breaking News… Foodservice giant Aramark signs Fair Food agreement with CIW!

Eighth agreement comes in wake of successful “Dine with Dignity” campus campaign, leaves Sodexo as lone holdout in foodservice industry…

The CIW and Aramark issued a joint statement today to announce that we have reached an “agreement to to address farmworker wages and working conditions in the tomato fields of Florida.” The statement reads, in part:

“… Similar to those previously reached between the CIW and other food service and restaurant groups, the agreement establishes a supplier code of conduct developed and implemented with input from farmworkers themselves.  ARAMARK will also pay a 1.5-cent premium for every pound of tomatoes picked, with the premium to be distributed directly to harvesters.

As a result of this agreement, ARAMARK, along with other CIW partner companies, will steer its tomato purchases toward those growers who make a genuine effort to meet higher labor standards and away from any grower who is found to be associated with abusive labor practices…” read the release in its entirety

The agreement came after Aramark entered into parallel discussions with both the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange and the CIW about the need to improve farm labor wages and working conditions. Despite the FTGE’s aggressive public relations campaign last month to promote what it termed its “new social responsibility program” (click here for the CIW’s analysis of the FTGE’s fox-guarding-the-henhouse approach to accountability), Aramark put its support behind the CIW’s Campaign for Fair Food:

“… Independent discussions between ARAMARK, the Student/Farmworker Alliance (SFA), the CIW and the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange (FTGE) have explored wage and working conditions of Florida tomato farm workers. As a result of these discussions, ARAMARK has signed this agreement, supporting the CIW’s Fair Food Program…” read the release

Lucas Benitez of the CIW added:

“… ‘Together with ARAMARK and our other partners, we are building a system of real accountability, with tangible consequences for growers who fail to protect farmworkers’ basic rights,’ continued Benitez.  ‘It is our belief that such accountability, with worker input, will be the foundation for lasting improvements in the industry.’” read more

This newest agreement is significant on several levels. It consolidates the historic advances established in the Compass agreement. It lays the groundwork for the further expansion of those advances in the foodservice industry. And it sends a powerful message to the supermarket industry — and to Publix in particular — on the eve of the Campaign for Fair Food’s biggest action of the year.

With this agreement, the four largest companies in fast-food, and now the two largest companies in foodservice, are standing with the CIW. It is time, finally, for the supermarket industry to do its part to clean up the farm labor poverty and human rights abuses from which it has profited so handsomely for so many years.

The Student/Farmworker Alliance (SFA), and its network of Fair Food activists on campuses across the country, were instrumental in bringing Aramark to embrace the principles of Fair Food. Several successful campus-based campaigns brought pressure on the foodservice giant (with over $12 billion in revenue in 2009) with one demand — work in partnership with the CIW for real farm labor reform.

And now, the SFA’s Dine with Dignity Campaign turns its attention to the lone remaining foodservice company yet to reach an agreement with the CIW, Sodexo. Be sure to check out the SFA website for more on plans to turn up the heat on Sodexo, check back soon for more on the Aramark agreement, and stay tuned to this site in the weeks ahead as momentum continues to build for this month’s big Farmworker Freedom March!