Dennis Parker, NCLEJ Executive Director: “We’re incredibly excited to work with the CIW to fight for humane wages and conditions for workers.”
Lucas Benitez, Co-founder, Coalition of Immokalee Workers: “We’re honored to join forces with the National Center for Law and Economic Justice to fuel the expansion of Worker-driven Social Responsibility…”
This just in! The Coalition of Immokalee Workers is joining forces with the National Center for Law and Economic Justice (NCLEJ), a leading civil rights and public interest legal organization, to provide legal and strategic support to the growing number worker and human rights organizations adopting the Worker-driven Social Responsibility model. As the pace of expansion of the WSR model increases exponentially in global supply chains, this new partnership with NCLEJ represents another significant step toward the eradication of workplace abuses and exploitation for millions of the world’s most vulnerable workers.
Read our release on the partnership below:
National Center for Law and Economic Justice and Coalition of Immokalee Workers Announce Trailblazing Partnership
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CONTACT: Patrick Fowler, National Center for Law and Economic Justice | [email protected]
Greg Asbed, Coalition of Immokalee Workers | [email protected]
NEW YORK, NY – The National Center for Law and Economic Justice (NCLEJ), a leading civil rights and public interest legal organization, and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a pioneering worker-based human rights organization, are excited to announce a trailblazing new partnership.
CIW Associate General Counsel Nick Wertsch will join NCLEJ and will also serve as Staff Attorney to other worker and human rights organizations in their efforts to adopt the Presidential Medal-winning WSR model. Under this innovative partnership between a nonprofit public interest legal organization and a worker-driven human rights organization, NCLEJ and CIW will use their collective legal, advocacy, and organizing experience to build and expand the groundbreaking model, widely-recognized as the gold standard for human rights protections in modern global supply chains today.
CIW pioneered the WSR model with the launch of the Fair Food Program (FFP) in 2011 in Florida’s tomato fields, transforming an industry once dubbed “ground zero for modern-day slavery” by federal prosecutors into what one expert called “the best working environment in American agriculture” just three years after its inception. Workers and their rights are at the center of the WSR model, which leverages the purchasing power of the global corporations at the top of the supply chain to compel suppliers to adhere to human rights standards, and empowers workers to serve as frontline monitors of their own rights in the workplace.
Dennis Parker, NCLEJ Executive Director: “The Coalition of Immokalee Workers is a truly inspirational worker-driven organization. Combined with our more than 50 years of legal expertise and experience, we hope that this dynamic partnership can serve as an innovative model for worker advocacy across the country. We’re incredibly excited to work with the CIW to fight for humane wages and conditions for workers.”
Lucas Benitez, Co-founder, Coalition of Immokalee Workers: “We’re honored to join forces with the National Center for Law and Economic Justice to fuel the expansion of Worker-driven Social Responsibility and share its life-changing human rights protections with workers across the country. We know firsthand how powerful this model can be for uprooting long-standing abuses, from sexual harassment and assault to wage theft and even forced labor. This new partnership will make it possible to extend WSR’s groundbreaking protections to many more communities like ours that have struggled to win respect for their fundamental human rights for far too long."
