Trader Joe's Locks the Doors to Rabbis and Ministers

http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/10/trader-joes-locks-the-doors-to-rabbis-and-ministers/247527/


When a social-justice group accompanied by religious leaders showed up to present a letter asking the grocery chain to sign a Fair Food Agreement, no one would open the door

Things are getting ugly in the tomato patch.

Last week, about 400 workers' rights advocates from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a labor- and human-rights organization founded two decades ago by migrant tomato pickers in the southwestern Florida city of the same name, marched to the headquarters of Trader Joe's outside Los Angeles. The group was accompanied by about 20 religious leaders. They wanted to present management with two letters, one signed by 109 rabbis, the other by more than 80 California pastors.

Both letters asked Trader Joe's executives to work with the coalition to address labor abuses in the tomato fields.

In the past 15 years, seven cases of slavery involving more than 1,200 workers in Florida agriculture, including tomato workers, have been successfully prosecuted. Noting that the story of their own religion began with the "journey of our ancestors from slavery to freedom," the rabbis' letter said, "This legacy informs our moral imperative to fight modern slavery and uphold the right of every individual to be free."

I love Trader Joe's so this really, really bothers me. I will let them know I think they're blowing it. Thanks for the post. I didn't know.

http://labornotes.org/2011/10/tomato-pickers-trader-joes-rotten

OUT OF STEP

Trader Joe’s seems to recognize how far out of step it is. The company claimed the day before the last week’s action that they have agreed to buy tomatoes from Florida farms covered by the CIW agreement. They also claimed to have included a surcharge in their tomato contracts which could cover the wage increase.

But Trader Joe’s refuses to sign on to the code of conduct that would guarantee the pay raise gets to the workers. An agreement would also bring transparency in implementing the code, which includes access to water and shade during breaktime. In a letter to an exasperated ex-customer in late October, the company said, “The CIW, an entity with which we have no business relationship, continues to demand that we sign an agreement with them that is unacceptable to us.”

“How would Trader Joe’s know whether a grower is actually adhering to the code of conduct or not?” asked Cruz Salucio, a tomato worker and CIW member, adding that companies that rely on their contractors to self-report abuses don’t find many.

Trader Joe’s is privately owned, but CIW estimates it had more than $8 billion dollars in sales last year. Farmworkers say the corporation’s resistance is not about paying an extra penny—it’s about control.

This group is not claiming that TJ is sourcing its tomatoes from farms engaged in unfair labor practices.

This group's complaint is that TJ won't enter into an agreement of some kind with this group.

Is the text of this agreement available?

http://www.ciw-online.org/101.html

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers

The Campaign for Fair Food

In 2001, we launched the Campaign for Fair Food with the first-ever farmworker boycott of a major fast-food company. The national boycott of Taco Bell called on the fast-food giant to take responsibility for human rights abuses in the fields where its produce is grown and picked.

The logic behind the Campaign for Fair Food is simple. Major corporate buyers -- companies such as Publix, Ahold, Kroger and Wal-Mart -- purchase a tremendous volume of fruits and vegetables, leveraging their buying power to demand the lowest possible prices from their suppliers. This, in turn, exerts a powerful downward pressure on wages and working conditions in these suppliers' operations.

A 2004 study released by Oxfam America, "Like Machines in the Fields: Workers without Rights in American Agriculture," concludes: "Squeezed by the buyers of their produce, growers pass on the costs and risks imposed on them to those on the lowest rung of the supply chain: the farmworkers they employ" (36). The Campaign for Fair Food aims to reverse this trend by harnessing the purchasing power of the food industry for the betterment of farmworker wages and working conditions.

In March 2005, following a four-year campaign, Taco Bell agreed to meet all of our demands. This victory established several crucial precedents for farm labor reform, including:

* The first-ever direct, ongoing payment by a fast-food industry leader to farmworkers in its supply chain to address sub-standard farm labor wages (nearly doubling the percentage of the final retail price that goes to the workers who pick the produce);

* The first-ever enforceable Code of Conduct for agricultural suppliers in the fast-food industry (which includes the CIW, a worker-based organization, as part of the investigative body for monitoring worker complaints);

* Market incentives for agricultural suppliers willing to respect their workers’ human rights, even when those rights are not guaranteed by law;

* 100% transparency for Taco Bell’s tomato purchases in Florida.

My question was directed to "What is TJ doing wrong". The answer seems to be "not signing a contract with this particular organization".

Is TJ sourcing its tomatoes from farms engaged in unfair practices or not?

Whether or not TJ signs a contract with this organization is not probative of that question.

oxfam is also involved as well as the interfaith alliance.

they've had a number of victories trying to get better wages for tomato pickers w/ taco bell, burger king and others.

you are welcome to exercise your power of google.