On Feb. 9, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW)
announced a signed agreement in which Trader Joe’s will begin to work with the
CIW and Florida tomato growers to support the CIW’s Fair Food Program.
Despite its image as a progressive company, Trader
Joe’s has put up significant resistance to signing the agreement. In a May 11
statement, they called the CIW’s demands, “overreaching, ambiguous and improper.”
This comes from an $8 billion retailer in opposition to an agreement that would
increase the wages of tomato growers by merely an extra penny per pound which
would bring them closer to a living wage.
The Fair Food Program not only increases the wages of
tomato growers, but also includes regular breaks, establishes a system for
filing complaints, bans all forms of sexual harassment and takes steps to
ensure that any incidents of slavery were identified and prosecuted.
The CIW began their struggle in 1993 when a small
group of Florida
farmworkers met to discuss ways they could improve their working conditions and
secure better wages. Since then,
the CIW, headquartered in Immokalee,
Fla.,
have grown to over 4,000 strong, with many more supporters nationwide who are
willing to mobilize in solidarity with them.
This includes the Party for Socialism and Liberation
which has engaged in struggle alongside the Immokalee workers in Florida
against fast food giants such as McDonald’s and Burger King. Most recently, PSL
members mobilized within a coalition of students and workers for an Oct. 21
action at Monrovia,
Calif.,
where Trader Joe’s has its corporate headquarters.
The signing came one day before tens of thousands of
activists had planned actions in over 40 cities across the country against
Trader Joe’s. It was also before Trader Joe’s opened its first store in Florida,
where the CIW also has had many victories over other large corporations such as
McDonald’s, Burger King, Whole Foods and Subway among others.
Such victories would not have been made possible without
a broad coalition of students, labor and the community organizing together to
fight against such capitalist exploitation wrought by the 1%.
