The Trump administration has moved quickly to disrupt civil rights programs and projects of all kinds, but the most focused attacks have hit immigrant communities, now threatened with mass deportation and incarceration.
Meanwhile, one workers’ organization, launched in Immokalee, Florida, is moving full steam ahead.
Pacifica Network’s Lisa Loving speaks with Gerardo Reyes Chavez of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers Fair Food Program about their work, their communities and what they expect next.
Lisa Loving: Gerardo, this program has worked for years to bring human rights to our farm fields. What is the Coalition of Immokalee Workers Fair Food Program? How does it work?
Gerardo Reyes Chavez: First of all, thank you, Lisa, for inviting us to be part of this conversation.
The Fair Food Program is the materialization of many of the dreams that we as workers have in the community of Immokalee where it all started.
[When we got to Immokalee], we were desperate, desperate for work, housing; and we didn’t have money or know anybody in town. That was my welcoming, and that is the welcoming of so many workers that have come to this community: wage theft, discrimination, all different kinds of abuse. After our wages were stolen while working in tomatoes, it was from that moment that I got involved. So I became roommates [with the workers]. They introduced me to the CIW. That was 1999.
There were important changes made back then, but what was needed was a systemic change. There were three general strikes here in town with more than 3,000 workers, a march against the violence that was prevalent every season, several cases of wage theft, the stagnation of wages at 40 to 45 cents for more than 30 years, since 1978, and, in the extreme, situations of modern-day slavery.
As a community, we got to a turning point when, after a hunger strike, a grower was asked, ‘Why not sit at the table with these workers that have been without food for 30 days? Don’t you think that they have earned that place? You don’t have to concede to any of the demands.’ This was a question asked of a relatively smaller, in comparison, grower. The answer of this grower was very enlightening, really sad. He said, ‘I’m going to put it to you this way. A tractor doesn’t tell a farmer how to run his farm.’
And it was around that time that there was a last attempt to have a dialog with the growers; a march of 234 miles from Fort Myers to Orlando to the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association. That was the first action that I was part of. And, you know, the statement that a tractor doesn’t tell a farmer how to run the farm was very telling because the fight was not just about changing the conditions in the fields, about addressing the imbalance of power between workers and employers and about wages; it was about something much more fundamental. It was about fighting for the recognition of our humanity as workers.
And, in that moment, we realized that we needed to think outside of the box in regards to the solution. We knew that the growers were not ready or willing to sit with us. It took almost a decade of campaigning to have a dialog with the agricultural industry.
So we started to look up at the market and saw a publication in which Taco Bell was talking about this wonderful relationship they had with their suppliers in our area in Florida. And we thought, ‘If Taco Bell knew of the abuses that happen to workers in the agricultural industry, they would want to be part of the solution.’ So we sent letters. We started to ask those questions…to no avail.
We knew we needed to increase pressure; and, being a community that didn’t have allies outside of Immokalee or allies that had knowledge of the conditions that farm workers face, we also knew that we were sort of invisible. Our hunger strike had helped create some visibility. We were locally known. But the amazing thing is that we were ready to do everything that we could to change the conditions. And we decided that the vehicle should be the market. If the market was responsible for perpetrating poverty by its own immobility when it comes to treatment for workers in its own supply chain, it allows for all kinds of abuses to go on and [the businesses] always wash their hands [of it]. The market needed to be the solution. That was our theory of change.
When we started, as I said, we were alone. The Taco Bell boycott started in 2001, and we set off on a trip crossing the entire country to the headquarters of Taco Bell in Irvine, California. This boycott lasted four years. Every time that we did a tour, we would stop in 17 different cities. The two buses filled with workers, around 100 every time, would serve as an on-wheels training facility for workers to lose the fear of talking about the conditions that we all faced while producing food for everybody.
And, when that happened, we were ready to do several presentations in each city that we stopped in, so that helped us connect with students in over 300 universities who got excited and started their own campaign of ‘Booting the Bell,’ meaning cutting contracts or sponsorships of Taco Bell. And that helped bring Taco Bell to the table. The National Council of Churches, during that window of time, endorsed the boycott of Taco Bell, and that meant that churches across the country would open the doors for us, [and] would gather volunteers to cook food for all the people who were participating from Immokalee on these truth tours–that’s what we called them.
So in 2005, we reached the first agreement with Taco Bell in the headquarters of Yum! Brands, which is the parent company of Taco Bell in Louisville, Kentucky. That was the genesis of the agreements that eventually helped us to create the Fair Food Program.
The demands that we had at the time were that Taco Bell pay a penny more per pound. The second demand was that Taco Bell stop buying immediately if there were any cases of modern-day slavery happening at any farm they were buying tomatoes from in Florida. And the third, and perhaps the most important, was that Taco Bell would buy from farms where a code of conduct would be crafted by us as workers that would incorporate all the rights that were necessary so that the dignity of every worker is safeguarded, And, in that demand, we made it clear that we would be part of the process, not just of crafting it, but also part of the process of implementation.
Lisa Loving: Taco Bell was the first to comply, and then other companies followed?
Yes. The Campaign for Fair Food led us to reach agreements in 2007 with McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, Whole Foods, Wal-Mart, and the list goes on. There are 14 agreements, outlining that, when these corporations buy from farms in Florida, they have to do it abiding by the implementation of what we eventually would call the Fair Food Program.
This started in 2010 with a few growers as a pilot, and then we finetuned it so that it would be ready to be implemented in 2011 through the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange who also signed on in 2010 to make it effective beginning, I think, in November, 2011.
This program was implemented first in Florida; but then, when workers crossed the borderline between Florida and Georgia, you would hear crew leaders say, “In Florida, you have the right to shade in the fields. You have the right to complain without retaliation, to work free of sexual harassment, violence. You have the right to health and safety; workers have the right to protect their health without being fired’ as you would have been for trying to do that in the past. So, when Walmart came on board in, I think, 2013, we were able to expand the Fair Food Program to nine other states up the East Coast. All the companies that supplied to Walmart needed to also extend or expand this protection to their operations up north.
Just recently, the USDA named The Fair Food Program the best system (I’m paraphrasing here) to address abuses for agricultural workers, and they awarded it the Platinum Level, which is the highest ranking they have.
And, with that, they also started to incentivize growers to decide to join the Fair Food Program. Last June 14, Tom Vilsack [Former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture] announced that in a press conference at one of the Colorado farms that is participating with us. And, since then, 30 new operations have seen the beginning of the Fair Food Program in 13 states. So, the Fair Food Program now has a presence in 23 states. That is the power of workers coming together with consumers, with people of faith, with people of conscience from every path of life, and the corporations having to listen to all of us together signing on to the program. Their power is being used to guarantee that workers in the fields have all the rights they deserve while they are doing this important job of feeding this country.
Lisa Loving: So what are you seeing right now?
Gerardo Reyes Chavez: What we are seeing are changes that are very concrete. Reports come out every two years. And what you see is a complete, different scenario, like day and night. You see the contrast of what’s going on in the country today [with our program], in regards to the cases of modern-day slavery that continue to emerge.
We heard in the news just a couple of years ago about a [fraud, human trafficking ] case involving workers that was brought in 2015. That’s when the first stories came out from the Operation Blooming Onion case. It took several years for us to have enough information. The workers obviously were afraid for their lives. This criminal organization recruited 71,000 workers, imposed a debt of more than $2,000 [on them], was able to launder up to an amount of $200 million for all of these years to a casino in Tampa. So these cases continue to happen all across the US.
There’s another [abuse] case that took place here in Florida involving watermelon workers. For me, that’s very personal because I’ve been a watermelon worker myself for 14 seasons. The workers were able to escape in the trunk of the food truck and then call our office. We connected them with the authorities, and that case was resolved.
“When you have the power of the market blessing you for doing the right thing, then that is good business, those are long-term business relationships on the basis of human rights.”
But when you think about the prevalence of cases like that emerging, and then you look at how the Fair Food Program works and why it works, you realize how important it is for us to expand the Fair Food Program to more and more places. Because, through the program, and because of the market, we’re talking about millions and millions of dollars that any operation can be blessed with if they agree to respect workers and follow all the things that are part of the code of conduct, all the rights that workers have. Growers need to encourage them to report whenever there’s something that is not happening as it should in order for them to sell their produce. When you have the power of the market blessing you for doing the right thing, then that is good business, these are long-term business relationships on the basis of human rights. If we bring in a new corporation to be part of the program, let’s say Wendy’s comes on board, the suppliers that work with them are going to have to be part of the Fair Food Program. Once Wendy’s signs on to this, that will automatically protect more workers because of the power of the market and because an organization–the Fair Food Standards Council–was created with the sole purpose of making sure that compliance is happening on both levels, at the level of the grower and at the level of the corporations that have signed on to the program. If they receive complaints, they investigate them, bring them to a resolution, craft a corrective action plan when necessary, and that is what needs to be followed by every grower if they want to say they are in compliance with the Fair Food Program.
And that establishes so many checkpoints–in the process of education, for example. When we go to the fields, we talk for about an hour about all the rights included in the booklet that every worker receives at the point of hire. There’s a video for those who might prefer because of language, because of different barriers that sometimes can exist. It’s an enactment created by workers themselves detailing workers’ rights in the field. Then a group of auditors follows closely after our visit for an education session; they talk with the workers while they are working. 50% of any workforce anywhere that is part of the program is going to be interviewed at a minimum.
And when you think about the social auditing that has been described in so many publications as something that doesn’t work, that’s part of the old CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) approach that does nothing really to protect workers. The most recognized number is 50%. That’s the most and that’s without any kind of access, and many times these are workers working directly for the corporations that hire them as a PR response to human rights abuses.
So, when you see the difference in the approach, the amount of focus that Fair Food Standards brings to the issue regarding compliance, to make sure that every grower is doing the best they can to be part of the program, then the results are absolutely beautiful. Because inside the program, you are not going to find violent bosses. You are not going to find modern-day slavery. We have been able not just to identify the problems, the most horrible situations, and resolve them; we have been able to clean the industry together with the growers themselves as partners with us as a new way of doing business. We effectively married the need for human rights in the fields with the ability to do business. And, when you do those things with workers at the center of the Fair Food Program, then the result is bringing conditions not just to be better, but bringing conditions to a point at which we have been able to prevent all of the worst abuses that we continue to hear about everywhere else. Our hope is to be able to expand this as quickly as possible, doing that responsibly. Obviously, we need more corporations to join so that we can keep going and keep guaranteeing that those who come from working in the fields, those who dedicate their lives to feeding the country, that every single worker receives the opportunity to have food on the table in a dignified manner.
Lisa Loving: With the Trump Administration, do you think that any part of that’s going to be changed? What do you think is going to happen next?
Gerardo Reyes Chavez: One of the things that is important to highlight here is that the Fair Food Program is a private system. It has legally binding agreements, both with growers through the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, with every corporation that has joined, and a couple of agreements directly with some of the growers themselves.
And we have seen that it works, It works perfectly as it was intended, and it delivers the promise of guaranteeing protections for workers in the fields.
Now the conversation has shifted since a couple of years ago in regards to weather conditions, the increase in temperature. In 174 years of records, I think 2024 was the hottest month of July, placing workers at risk for their lives.
This conversation around heat started because outdoor workers became statistics in the news. This partnership with the growers helped us to bring up the conversation about heat. That’s when we came up with a solution that was beautiful. There is an agreement of including mobile, shared structures, not just shading the fields. That was[already] part of the Fair Food Program. They are now a requisite for every grower. Now growers are implementing heat protocols that include, from April 15 to November 15, a break of 10 minutes or more every two hours, depending on how the weather is.
The agreement also includes having growers provide electrolytes. We learned about a study that showed how farm workers being exposed to the temperatures can lead to kidney illness. And that’s something that’s been proven. So, electrolytes have been included [in our agreement] as a measure to protect worker health on every farm. And that’s something that doesn’t exist anywhere else. That shows the power of collaboration. It’s also a testament to how the things that are included in the program make so much sense because we as workers are part of the crafting of all of those agreements. Basically, we stopped being tractors. That change was fundamental to getting to the point where we are.
.Lisa Loving: Which is establishing a model for others…
Yes. The program is being implemented in 23 states, as I mentioned earlier; but it also serves as a blueprint for other workers in other sectors. Workers in the dairy industry in Vermont, represented by Migrant Justice, came to us to learn how we were able to establish the program. It was like three seasons into the implementation process that we started to talk with them. And they shadowed the process of education, the process of auditing from the Fair Food Standards Council, and the process of organizing in our community. And they crafted their own program with our support. They call it the Milk with Dignity program and have been implementing protections adapted for workers in that sector with the agreement they have with Ben and Jerry’s. They are currently inviting Hannaford to also become part of their program.
Workers in the construction sector in Minneapolis and Saint Paul have created something they call the BDR or Building with Dignity and Respect. The organization established agreements this past October with some non-profit building companies, and they are going to be collaborating with other companies that are interested to do the same. So there are different iterations of what we call the WSR model, the Fair Food Program is for the fields. The WSR, Work-driven Social Responsibility model, is the provision that we created for the fields adapted for different sectors and different industries.
Additionally, this process has awakened the interest of many different sectors across the globe. There’s an ongoing conversation with workers that are diverse. In Chile, for example, they are very interested in seeing how they can adapt this model to the production of salmon, which is no small thing in Chile. That’s the second most important industry in terms of their economy. In the UK, we have had a visit from Scottish Fishkeepers who wanted to see how this program could be implemented in the fishing industry. In the UK, our organizations are working very closely on these conversations, trying to see how that can work. And there are changes also in Europe regarding due diligence for human rights, which is basically a package that is going to take its own form in different countries. But they all have to encompass the protections that are needed. In the European Union, the governance of all of this is looking closely at compliance. In South Africa, there are ongoing conversations there. In the production of tomatoes, there’s an ongoing communication right now in Spain. In Ecuador, there are workers producing bananas that end up in Europe, and they have tried to work with certification organizations or institutions that do social auditing. They realize that that doesn’t work to protect the workers in the fields. So they started to do their own research, and they came out by several sources with a decision that they needed to meet the CIW. They want to replicate the program in their context. All of these are ongoing conversations, and I’m sure that we will be talking more about every iteration that blends effectively the same thing. This is something that has gone global, and, for me, that’s what needs to happen.
We all need to support the protection of workers, independently of the political winds, because it is, for me, something that is sacred. Anyone who works producing food, building homes, doing any job that makes it possible for industries to thrive, deserves to be treated with dignity and to receive wages that help them sustain their own families.
Lisa Loving: Thank you for your time, Gerardo.
Gerardo: Thank you, Lisa.
You can find out more about the Immokalee Workers Fair Food Program at ciw-online.org.
Top photo features field workers with the Fair Food Program of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers hold up a poster promoting their organization. Photo courtesy the Fair Food Program.
Interview transcribed and edited for print by Diane Reinhardt and Stephanie Schubert.