Support the Campaign for Fair Food on Oct 24, National Food Day!

On National Food Day, and the final day of the National Supermarket Week of Action, come out to support the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, an award-winning farmworker rights group leading the Campaign for Fair Food.

In addition to having healthy, accessible food for all, we must have a just system for those who harvest everything that ends up on our plates. It’s time for supermarkets like Trader Joe’s to work with the CIW, the Florida growers, and the nine participating major purchasers of tomatoes like Burger King, Whole Foods, and Aramark to pay a penny per pound of tomatoes and to ensure a new and unprecedented code of conduct for farmworkers.

Come out on Monday to Tell Trader Joe’s to do the right thing and sign with the CIW! Wear a hawaiian shirt if you have one, or dress as a tomato, feel free to get creative! After the protest, we will be delivering a poster-sized petition to Trader Joe’s.

For information about the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Campaign for Fair Food, visit www.ciw-online.org.

Click Here to read the point-by-point letter from the CIW to Trader Joe’s!

BACKGROUND

With more than $8 billion in sales last year, Trader Joe’s is an emerging leader in the US supermarket industry. The company’s rapid growth is largely based on its ethical and progressive image.

But behind that veneer lies a disregard for human rights.

For decades, farmworkers who pick tomatoes for companies like Trader Joe’s have endured grinding poverty and systemic human rights abuses. Today, hope is on the horizon, but Trader Joe’s refuses to do its part.

The Campaign for Fair Food, led by the internationally-acclaimed, farmworker-led Coalition of Immokalee Workers, has sparked an unprecedented transformation in farm labor conditions. Corporations such as Whole Foods, McDonald’s, Taco Bell and six other food industry giants have committed to a strict, farmworker-designed Code of Conduct and to increasing workers’ wages by paying a premium for their tomatoes.

But Trader Joe’s has refused to seize this opportunity to be a part of the solution, responding instead to the just demands of farmworkers and consumers with slick public relations — hardly the behavior one would  expect from one of the “most ethical companies” in the US.

ADDITIONAL READING

“The True Cost of Tomatoes” by Mark Bittman (New York Times, 6/14/11) http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/the-true-cost-of-tomatoes/

“The Profound Impact of a Penny” by Barry Estabrook (Zester Daily, 6/6/11) http://zesterdaily.com/zester-soapbox-articles/944-trader-joes-says-no-to-increase-for-florida-tomato-farmworkers

“The Tomatoes of Wrath” by Chris Hedges (9/26/11)
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/26-6