In Florida Tomato Fields, a Penny Buys Progress
A New Day in America’s Tomato Capital
Credit Richard Perry/The New York Times
IMMOKALEE,
Fla. — Not long ago, Angelina Velasquez trudged to a parking lot at 5
each morning so a crew leader’s bus could drop her at the tomato fields
by 6. She often waited there, unpaid — while the dew dried — until 10
a.m., when the workers were told to clock in and start picking.
Back
then, crew leaders often hectored and screamed at the workers, pushing
them to fill their 32-pound buckets ever faster in this area known as
the nation’s tomato capital. For decades, the fields here have had a
reputation for horrid conditions. Many migrant workers picked without
rest breaks, even in 95-degree heat. Some women complained that crew
leaders groped them or demanded sex in exchange for steady jobs.
But
those abusive practices have all but disappeared, said Ms. Velasquez,
an immigrant from Mexico. She and many labor experts credit a tenacious
group of tomato workers, who in recent years forged partnerships with
giant restaurant companies like McDonald’s and Yum Brands (owner of Taco
Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC) to improve conditions in the fields.
By enlisting the might of major restaurant chains and retailers — including Walmart, which signed on this year — the Coalition of Immokalee Workers
has pressured growers that produce 90 percent of Florida’s tomatoes to
increase wages for their 30,000 workers and follow strict standards that
mandate rest breaks and forbid sexual harassment and verbal abuse.
The incentive for growers to comply with what’s called the Fair Food Program
is economically stark: The big companies have pledged to buy only from
growers who follow the new standards, paying them an extra penny a
pound, which goes to the pickers. The companies have also pledged to
drop any suppliers that violate the standards.
So
far, the agreements between retailers and growers are limited to
Florida’s tomato fields, which in itself is no small feat considering
that the state produces 90 percent of the country’s winter tomatoes.
But
gaining the heft and reach of Walmart — which sells 20 percent of the
nation’s fresh tomatoes year-round — may prove far more influential. To
the applause of farmworkers’ advocates, the retailer has agreed to
extend the program’s standards and monitoring to its tomato suppliers in
Georgia, South Carolina and Virginia and elsewhere on the Eastern
Seaboard. Walmart officials say they also hope to apply the standards to
apple orchards in Michigan and Washington and strawberry fields in many
states.
“This
is the best workplace-monitoring program I’ve seen in the U.S.,” said
Janice R. Fine, a labor relations professor at Rutgers. “It can
certainly be a model for agriculture across the U.S. If anybody is going
to lead the way and teach people how it’s done, it’s them.”
Since
the program’s inception, its system of inspections and decisions issued
by a former judge has resulted in suspensions for several growers,
including one that failed to adopt a payroll system to ensure pickers
were paid for all the time they worked.
But
progress is far from complete. Immokalee, 30 miles inland from several
wealthy gulf resorts, is a town of taco joints and backyard chicken
coops where many farmworkers still live in rotting shacks or
dilapidated, rat-infested trailers. A series of prosecutions has
highlighted modern-day slavery in the area — one 2008 case involved
traffickers convicted of beating workers, stealing their wages and
locking them in trucks.
“When
I first visited Immokalee, I heard appalling stories of abuse and
modern slavery,” said Susan L. Marquis, dean of the Pardee RAND Graduate
School, a public policy institution in Santa Monica, Calif. “But now
the tomato fields in Immokalee are probably the best working environment
in American agriculture. In the past three years, they’ve gone from
being the worst to the best.”
Amassing
all these company partnerships took time. The workers’ coalition
organized a four-year boycott of Taco Bell to get its parent company,
Yum Brands, to agree in 2005 to pay an extra penny a pound for tomatoes,
helping increase workers’ wages. In 2007 the coalition sponsored a
march to Burger King’s headquarters in Miami, pushing that company to
join the effort. Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Chipotle and Subway have
also signed on.
Perhaps
the coalition’s biggest success is luring Walmart, which joined the
program in January without a fight. Walmart officials said they were
looking for ethically sourced produce as well as a steady supply of
tomatoes. The giant company’s decision coincides with its major inroads into organic foods and fresh fruits and vegetables.
“We
try to sell safe, affordable, sustainable sources of food — that’s the
only way we will be able to grow the way we want in the future,” said
Jack L. Sinclair, executive vice president of Walmart’s grocery
division. “These guys have a pretty good set of standards in place that
we think will allow our growers to get a consistent level of labor.” He
told of Arizona growers whose tomatoes had rotted in the fields because
of a lack of pickers.
The
Fair Food Program’s standards go far beyond what state or federal law
requires, mandating shade tents so that workers who request a rest break
can escape the hot Florida sun. Remedying a practice that Ms. Velasquez
abhorred, growers must clock in workers as soon as they are bused to
the fields.
Every
farm must have a health and safety committee with workers’
representatives, and there is a 24-hour hotline that workers can call,
with a Spanish-speaking investigator.
Under
the program, tomato pickers may receive an extra $60 to $80 a week
because of the penny-a-pound premium. That means a 20 to 35 percent
weekly pay increase for these workers, who average about $8.75 an hour.
The extra penny a pound means that participating companies together pay
an additional $4 million a year for tomatoes.
“We see ourselves as a standard-setting organization,” said Greg Asbed, co-founder of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.
Mr. Asbed attributes the program’s success to getting giant corporations like Walmart to join.
“We’ve
harnessed their market power to eliminate worker abuses,” he said.
“There has to be real and believable market consequences for growers
that refuse to comply.”
In
late 2007, after McDonald’s signed on, the Florida Tomato Growers
Exchange, an industry association, sought to scuttle the coalition’s
efforts. It threatened growers with $100,000 fines if they cooperated
with the coalition, stalling its efforts.
But
the logjam was broken in 2010 when Pacific Tomato Growers — one of the
nation’s biggest producers, with large operations in Florida — joined.
Weeks later, Lipman, the nation’s largest tomato grower, also signed on,
and eventually the Tomato Growers Exchange did, too.
Beau
McHan, Pacific’s harvest manager, said, “We’re trying to run a business
and make a profit, yet everyone wants to know they’re changing the
world for the better.”
Joining,
he acknowledged, has cost Pacific hundreds of thousands of dollars —
$5,000 a year for shade tents and $50,000 for an improved drinking-water
system as well as the money to pay workers for waiting time that was
once off the clock. A former New York State judge, Laura Safer Espinoza,
oversees the inspection apparatus, which interviews thousands of
workers, audits payrolls and conducts in-depth interviews with farm
managers. There are lengthy trainings for crew leaders, and six of them
were fired after her team investigated allegations of verbal abuse and
sexual harassment.
“Supervisors have gotten the message, and we’re seeing far fewer allegations of harassment than three years ago,” she said.
Now
that the three-year-old program has stopped much of the abuse and
harassment, participants are planning to give tomatoes produced under
its watch a “Fair Food” label that could reassure — and attract —
shoppers who want ethically sourced produce.