For over 15 years, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida have been demanding better working conditions and a living wage in exchange for their backbreaking tomato picking labor. Their efforts are finally bearing fruit; for some time now Whole Foods, McDonald’s and Burger King have been paying an extra penny per pound. But the workers worry that their victory will unravel unless every major tomato purchaser participates, so today a busload of Florida farmworkers will arrive in NYC to demonstrate outside Trader Joe's, which has refused to sign the food pledge.
The farmworkers and others will demonstrate outside the Trader Joe's on the Upper West Side today at 1 p.m. They say Trader Joe's is undermining their struggle for a living wage, because it could embolden other big tomato buyers to turn to California and Mexico for cheaper tomatoes. "Trader Joe's is standing in the way of progress," says Leonel Perez of the CIW. "And their refusal to help improve farm labor wages and working conditions threatens to undermine the unprecedented—and still fragile—human rights advances that are just now starting to take root in the fields.
“What's even worse, is Trader Joe's insistence that it's buying ethically sourced tomatoes. Certainly, if Trader Joe's were claiming to sell Fair Trade coffee while refusing to pay the Fair Trade premium and instead paying the straight market price, consumers would be justifiably outraged... For more and more consumers shopping at Trader Joe's, claiming to sell ethically-sourced tomatoes from Florida while refusing to pay the Fair Food premium and instead paying the straight market price is likewise unacceptable."
Trader Joe's has not yet responded to requests for comment; we'll update when we hear back. For more on their struggle, check out this eye-opening article from Rabbi Jill Jacobs, who recalls hearing "a group of Immokalee workers speak. They described how red their hands would be at the end of the work day. Innocently, I thought they were talking about tomato juice stains. But as it turned out, they meant that their hands would be burned red by the pesticides on the fruit they were handling."
