Twenty years ago, the Presidential Medal-winning Fair Food Program was still a distant dream in the minds of farmworkers from Immokalee who, at the time, were on the cusp of signing the first-ever Fair Food agreement with Taco Bell, calling on the fast-food giant to take responsibility for the exploitation of farmworkers at the bottom of its supply chain. Driven by their lived experience in the fields — and backed by a national network of allies who shared their vision for long-overdue, worker-driven change — those farmworkers went on to sign with Taco Bell in March of 2005, setting the pieces in motion for the launch of the Fair Food Program five years later in 2010. Now, the FFP not only protects tens of thousands of farmworkers across the US, Chile, and South Africa, but the groundbreaking program also serves as a blueprint for workers around the world to guarantee their own essential human rights in industries from construction to seafood.
And the scale of change coming out of Immokalee is increasing at an exponential rate. Indeed, the year 2024 saw the greatest expansion ever of the fast-growing Fair Food Program, as well as the broader Worker-driven Social Responsibility (WSR) model pioneered by the CIW’s FFP.
This past year, the United States Department of Agriculture recognized the Fair Food Program as the highest level (“Platinum”) of human rights protection in the US agricultural industry, and offered over $15 million in federal grants to farms that commit to joining the program. This unprecedented government support rapidly accelerated the FFP’s national expansion, catapulting the FFP to new heights. At the same time, worker organizations around the world, taking note of the concrete gains the program has secured for farmworkers, were traveling to Immokalee to learn from the CIW how to adapt and launch WSR programs of their own. From fishers and skippers from Scotland to Chilean salmon workers and more, the CIW hosted delegations of workers to the birthplace of the WSR model for advice from its architects on building their own programs for systemic change.
But that’s not all.
Two monumental victories — each years in the making — gave us all the more reason to celebrate this past year as a pivotal moment in the story of WSR. First, Levi’s, one of the largest and best known fashion brands in the world, signed onto the legally binding Pakistan Accord, which protects over a million garment workers in that country. Second, two Minnesota-based housing developers have signed similar, WSR-inspired agreements with the Centro De Trabajadores Unidos En La Lucha (CTUL). The latter news means that CTUL will soon begin implementing the world’s first WSR program for construction workers in Minnesota, while the former greatly expands the market-backed power of the Pakistan Accord.
All of these developments tell the same remarkable story: WSR, born in the fields of Florida and designed by farmworkers from Immokalee, is the new paradigm for safeguarding the fundamental rights of supply chain workers across industries and national contexts for the 21st century.
To help us fuel the continued expansion of the FFP, and ensure that workers around the world can learn about WSR directly from the farmworkers who pioneered it, we need your help, now more than ever.
In this pivotal moment for all low-wage workers, your donation goes a long way. Every dollar you donate helps us meet the growing demand for our services and support, as we grow the Fair Food Program itself, on the one hand, and train other worker organizations on how to transform their own industries, on the other. In short, your donations help us to usher in nothing short of a human rights revolution.
And now we can stretch your dollar even further! Earlier this year, we received a spectacular matching gift from the NoVo Foundation. With their pledge, the NoVo Foundation will match every donation we receive this year, dollar for dollar, up to $2 million. Now you can double the impact of your donation and help us continue our vital work, not only across the U.S., but across the globe.