That Time Bernie Sanders Fought for Farm Worker Rights in Immokalee

Sanders Applauds Breakthrough for Farm Workers
Tuesday, November 16, 2010

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for years worked with the coalition of farm workers in order to help them receive the treatment and pay they deserve. The senator held a Senate labor committee hearing, along with the late Edward Kennedy, to spotlight working conditions on the farms. Sanders also visited Florida and surveyed the conditions which were so graphically depicted 50 years ago in Edward R. Murrow’s report “Harvest of Shame.”

Bernie Sanders today issued the following statement regarding a breakthrough in the relationship between Florida farm workers, represented by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, and the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange:

“The Coalition of Immokalee Workers has just proven that when you get up every day to fight for what is right, when you don’t give up even when all the odds are against you, when you don’t compromise on basic principles of fairness, and when you build a strong grassroots movement, economic justice will prevail over greed, and the least fortunate can successfully stand up to the powerful.

“Over these long years, there were many times when Florida’s tomato workers and the CIW could have backed down and just walked away. Thankfully, they did not. I applaud the CIW and the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange for reaching this historic agreement. We now have to be vigilant to make sure that tomato workers receive the pay raise that they have rightfully earned and that slavery and abusive labor conditions in Florida’s tomato fields are abolished once and for all.”

read: http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/release-sanders-applauds-breakthrough-for-farm-workers


US SENATE HEARING INTO FARMWORKER EXPLOITATION
IN FLORIDA TOMATO FIELDS
(photos by Fritz Myer)

Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee
April 15, 2008



The historic hearing in the US Senate — the first ever specifically called to look into labor conditions in Florida’s fields, the nation’s largest producer of fresh tomatoes and, for many years, of shameful headlines of farmworker slavery and exploitation — was called to order by the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Senator Edward Kennedy.



Sen. Sanders, who visited Immokalee in January, told the hearing, “In America today we are seeing a race to the bottom, the middle class is collapsing, poverty is increasing. What I saw in Immokalee is the bottom in the race to the bottom.



Reggie Brown, Executive Vice President, Florida Tomato Growers Exchange cited anti-trust laws as the reason the exchange didn't want to pass funds from the fast-food giants onto migrant workers. But Sanders dismissed Brown's concerns and pressed him further on the issue $100,000 fines to growers that decide to pass on the penny to workers.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont: "Isn't it true that the growers exchange threatened to impose a fine?"

Reggie Brown: "That is correct."

Bernie Sanders called for a congressional audit of migrant worker wages and put one further shot across the bow of the Florida Growers Exchange.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont: "This is not the end. This is the beginning. Most of us on the committee believe it is deplorable and that these conditions should not exist in 2008 in the United States of America."

read: http://ciw-online.org/blog/2008/04/senate_hearing/


Sen. Bernie Sanders
'The Harvest of Shame'
04/15/2008


As workers waited for a job, many stopped to talk with the Senator about the harsh conditions in Immokalee’s fields…

Last January, I visited Immokalee, Florida, to get a first-hand view of what was going on in the farm fields of Florida. On one of the days when I was there, a federal grand jury handed up an indictment alleging that workers were held in conditions that amounted to slavery. On Tuesday, a Senate panel convened a hearing into what long ago was called the "harvest of shame."

Let me very briefly tell you what I observed and what I learned from talking with a number of workers who pick tomatoes. At 5:30 am I was in a parking lot in central Immokalee and saw hundreds of workers mulling around for buses to take them to tomato fields. While most of the workers were selected to board buses and go to work, not all were. Those who were not picked earned no income at all during that day. Also, if it rains, as it did when I was there, workers are sent away from the fields and do not earn income for those hours.

In talking with workers who go out into the fields I learned that they make approximately 45 cents for every 32-pound bucket of tomatoes they pick. This wage has not increased since 1998; and in fact, farm worker wages have dropped 65 percent in the last 30 years, after adjusting for inflation. I also learned that while it is possible under optimum conditions to make as much as $10-$12 an hour, the average hourly wage is far lower than that. In fact, most workers in the tomato fields earn about $250 a week in income. Why are wages so low?

I also learned that there is no overtime when workers work more than 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week. There are no benefits. Health care is a serious problem especially for people who do hard, physical work as they do in the tomato fields, yet employers offer no health insurance. The housing that I saw was deplorable and extremely expensive. It was not uncommon for eight or 10 workers to be paying $500 a month to live in a trailer which, in the city where I was mayor, would never have passed a safety inspection.

"Is it really going to take an act of Congress to get Florida's tomato pickers a raise?" an editorial in the St. Petersburg Times asked. "The men and women who work the fields in Immokalee earn 45 cents on average for every 32-pound bucket of tomatoes harvested. It is a meager wage that has not been raised in more than 20 years. Yet when a couple of fast food giants generously agreed to pay workers an added penny per pound, the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange sabotaged the deal and has refused to negotiate even after congressional leaders offered to be intermediaries."

The editorial goes on to say that: "The truth is that Florida's migrant farm laborers are among the worst paid workers in the state. They haven't had a piece rate increase in a generation, and the Growers Exchange wants to keep it that way. Even when someone else is willing to foot the bill."

Thankfully, due to the dedication and hard work of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the conditions that exist in the Florida tomato fields has begun to come to light. As a direct result of the coalition's efforts, two large fast food companies -- McDonald's and Yum! Brands, whose subsidiaries include Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Long John Silvers and A&W -- have agreed to supplement the pay of these workers at a rate of an additional penny per pound for the tomatoes they buy. McDonald's and Yum! are to be commended for their commitment to help alleviate the despicable situation in the Florida tomato fields. Sadly, some other fast food companies, like Burger King, are resisting making a similar move which for a minimal cost would almost double the income of the Florida tomato workers.

In addition, the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange has threatened fines of up to $100,000 to any grower that cooperates in implementing the penny per pound agreements, something that I simply cannot comprehend. I have met with Reggie Brown with the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange personally about this subject, and I am pleased that he could join us today to explain this situation in greater detail.

Unfortunately, this is not a new problem. In 1960, Edward R. Murrow described the horrendous situation facing farm laborers in his famous TV documentary as a "Harvest of Shame." Tragically, almost 50 years later, not much has changed. Farm laborers, mostly migrant workers, continue to be ruthlessly exploited with low pay and poor working conditions.

In an era of globalization, the American people are becoming more and more concerned not only about the quality of goods they consume, but about the conditions facing those who produce those goods. In my view, the American consumer does not want the tomatoes they eat to be picked by workers who are grossly mistreated, underpaid, and in some case even kept in chains. This must not happen in the United States of America in 2008.

What is going on in Immokalee and other regions of Florida is deplorable and at its core repugnant to the values that our country is built upon. I hope Senate hearings will begin to shine a spotlight on the harvest of shame that is going on to this day in the tomato fields in Florida and will lay the groundwork for the legislative changes that will be needed if the large buyers of tomatoes in the fast food and supermarket industry and the large growers continue to resist the reforms that are desperately needed.

The time is now that large corporations like Burger King and recalcitrant growers that continue to profit from the slavery and near-slavery like conditions in the tomato fields of Florida begin to pay a price in the marketplace, in the court of public opinion, and, if necessary, in the United States Congress. I truly believe that, once they learn the truth, "American consumers will not patronize companies that continue to profit from the current situation.

In the United States of America, millions of workers are being forced into a race to the bottom. As poverty increases and the middle class shrinks, they are seeing their standard of living decline. They are working longer hours for lower wages, and are losing their health insurance, pensions and other benefits. What we have in the tomato fields of Florida are workers who are living on the lowest rung of the ladder in that race to the bottom. We must address their plight not only from a moral perspective, but with the understanding that if we look the other way, and accept the terrible exploitation they are suffering, every American worker is in danger as that race to the bottom accelerates.

read: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/the-harvest-of-shame_b_96759.html

related:

Immokalee Workers Press Conference - Sen. Bernie Sanders
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/immokalee-workers-press-conference

US SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS Visit to Immokalee, Florida, and Press Conference January 17 – 18, 2008
http://ciw-online.org/blog/2008/01/senator_sanders_visit_report/


watch: Senator Bernie Sanders Press Conference in Immokalee

Senator Sanders speaks at a press conference in Immokalee with Lucas Benitez of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and Eric Schlosser, author of "Fast Food Nation," to demand an end to modern-day slavery and sweatshop conditions in Florida's tomato fields

... it was time for the press conference, where Senator Sanders let no doubt that the eyes of the nation are turning toward the fields and that, “the American consumer does not want the tomatoes they eat to be picked by workers who are grossly mistreated.“

He continued:

“My strong belief is that the more the American people understand the situation here and the attacks on human rights and human dignity that are taking place, the more anger and frustration there will be. No worker in America should be treated the way tomato pickers in Immokalee are being treated. In my view, when the American people read and hear about slavery taking place today, about horrendously low wages and terrible living conditions, they want to see change.“