Fair Food activists 23, Trader Joe’s 0…


Trader Joe’s gets an earful from California to NYC in national weekend of action!

This past weekend, frustrated consumers took their feelings to the doorstep of Trader Joe’s stores in 23 cities across the country with creative, spirited protests, bringing everything from dozens of balloons in New York City to a parade of puppets in Santa Ana, California. The national action, coordinated by Just Harvest USA, signaled a significant escalation in the campaign calling on Trader Joe’s to join Whole Foods and other major food industry leaders in signing a Fair Food agreement and working with the CIW to improve wages and working conditions in the fields where they buy their tomatoes.

The New York action prompted some interesting coverage, including this passage from an article entitled, “Trader Joe’s Tomatoes a Target of Sunday’s Labor Protest” (The L Magazine, 4/29/11):

“…. On April 7, Trader Joe’s released a statement on its website saying that they would pay an extra penny per pound of tomatoes, and that they had no problem doing so. In fact, according to Trader Joe’s, all of the tomato growers in Florida that supply Trader Joe’s happen to abide by a CIW code of conduct. At the same time, Trader Joe’s has not signed any binding legal agreement with the CIW itself, and TJ’s has also made it clear that it “does not sign agreements that allow third party organizations to dictate to us what is right for our customers.”

The problem is that there is no way to verify what Trader Joe’s says—Trader Joe’s still won’t reveal from which growers they buy. Customers will simply just have to trust the corporation’s word. To the CIW, along with organizations like the New York City Community/Farmworker Alliance (CFA) and Student/Farmworker Alliance (SFA), this promise is toothless…

… In choosing Trader Joe’s, the CIW has targeted one of the most secretive corporations in the world… [A]s part of the company’s privacy policy, they rarely reveal who they source from. Whole Foods’ (who signed with the CIW) Whole Trade Program, by comparison, works with multiple third party certifiers like Transfair USA™ and Rainforest Alliance to audit their sourcing.

“There is, in this culture, a sense of an inherent right to manage free from any restraints—regulatory or any kind of legal, or cultural, or moral restraints,” says Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. But this year, Bronfenbrenner feels that American citizens are more distrustful of corporations and more supportive of labor movements than ever before.

“I think that what we saw in the aftermath of Wisconsin is that there’s a line at which American people start to say, ‘Wait a minute, that’s going too far.’” read more

Here below are a few pictures from a raucous weekend of action in a campaign that is catching on like wildfire:


From Santa Ana in the south…

… to Santa Cruz up the coast, Californians for Fair Food made sure Trader Joe’s customers learned the true story behind the secretive company’s tomatoes.

Across the country in New York City, Fair Food balloons from the protest made their way into the store…

… while out in the street, the growing student movement in support of the Campaign for Fair Food made its presence known.

At the same time, consumers in the middle of the country joined in the action, with a strong showing in Madison, Wisconsin…

… where one Fair Food activist apparently volunteered her services as a new form of human signage declaring “Justice for Farmworkers” at the Madison Trader Joe’s.

While this friendly delegation took its message straight to the source — to Trader Joe’s corporate headquarters in Monrovia, CA…

… where, despite the fact that the delegation included two pastors, several children, and a representative of the CIW that traveled across the country to be there, the company summarily turned them away without even the pretense of dialogue or even simple courtesy.

Given what appears to be a significant overlap between Trader Joe’s customers and Fair Food activists, May Day 2011 was only the beginning of an exciting new front in the movement for food justice!