While you are here, we are also calling on allies in the Fair Food Nation to sign a petition in support of farmworkers in their fight for dignity and to help expand the Fair Food Program!
Read the letter and sign on by clicking on the button with the words "sign the petition" below or by clicking here:
"From the fields once dubbed “Ground Zero for modern-day slavery” by federal prosecutors, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has pioneered a proven solution to forced labor in agriculture with the Fair Food Program (FFP), and in the process turned those fields into what one expert called “the best working environment in American agriculture,” on the front page of the New York Times.
Under the Fair Food Program, workers are protected against human rights violations ranging from sexual harassment and assault, to wage theft, dangerous working conditions, and retaliation for speaking up for their rights. Participating farms follow a worker-developed code of conduct, which is backed by the purchasing power of large retail corporations like Taco Bell, McDonald's and Walmart. Participating buyers sign binding agreements committing them to suspend purchases from farms that are suspended from the Program for failure to comply with the rights set forth in the code. Along the way, the Program has received recognition, including a Presidential Medal and a MacArthur “Genius” Award, from a wide range of human rights experts for its unique success. Farmworkers on FFP farms are frontline monitors of their own rights, and this worker-led initiative is expanding rapidly.
But holdout corporations like Wendy's, Publix, and Kroger have refused to join for over a decade, even as their supply chains remain hidden from the “gold standard” scrutiny of of the Fair Food Program. In the worst cases, this has led to large corporations buying produce harvested by workers trapped in forced labor operations. Earlier this year it was revealed that in the latest federal slavery prosecution to come out of Florida, US v. Moreno, Kroger did just that.
Now is the time to take a stand for human rights. Now is the time to champion the only proven solution to systemic forced labor in agriculture, the Fair Food Program.
As a consumer who believes in fundamental human rights and an ally of farmworkers who demand dignity and respect in the fields, I call on Wendy's, Publix, and Kroger to join the Fair Food Program without further delay, because justice delayed is justice denied."
