Vermont dairy workers with Migrant Justice celebrate second anniversary of launch of Milk with Dignity Program with march calling on Hannaford to join and “aid in the program’s expansion”;
Matt Maxwell, a farm owner enrolled in Milk with Dignity: “The Milk with Dignity Program allows us to pay the people that do these very important jobs an acceptable wage. Since joining Milk with Dignity our farm has maintained an 85% employee retention rate. Less turnover has led to higher morale and greater workplace continuity. The program has helped us make huge strides [as an] employer.”
On October 3rd, 2017, farmworkers in Vermont joined the CEO of the iconic ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s for a press conference in the state capital of Burlington to make an historic announcement: Ben & Jerry’s and the workers’ organization, Migrant Justice, were joining forces to launch an exciting new, Worker-driven Social Responsibility (WSR) program, called Milk with Dignity, to monitor and enforce farmworkers’ fundamental human rights in the Vermont dairy industry.
Two years later, on October 3rd, 2019, Migrant Justice returned to the streets of Burlington to celebrate the second anniversary of that announcement; to highlight the program’s extraordinary accomplishments over its first years of operation; and to call on Northeast supermarket chain Hannaford to join the Milk with Dignity Program and help expand its historic human rights protections.
