Fair Food Austin: Daily Texan: "Coalition campaigns against abusive tomato farmers"

October 9, 2009

Daily Texan: "Coalition campaigns against abusive tomato farmers"

Here's an interesting excerpt from the Daily Texan's coverage of our delegation to Henry Jackson's (Aramark) office in the Texas Union. Yesterday members of Fair Food Austin delivered an open letter calling on Aramark to "establish an agreement with the CIW with all due diligence."

During the meeting in the Union, Vallejo asked Jackson to pass the letter to his supervisor and set up another meeting time. Jackson said that his company asked that he did not have a meeting with the group.

“I don’t make purchasing decisions. [Aramark and the Coalition] are negotiating at a higher level,” Jackson said.

A statement was released from Aramark’s Corporate Communications stating that they have already met with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and sent a letter to their suppliers asking them to investigate the minimum wage and employment practices with the Immokalee tomato workers, and that Aramark does not contract with the growers or the farm workers in the purchasing of tomatoes.”

According to the CIW, however, no negotiations are currently underway. In fact, Aramark has yet to contact the CIW since the launch of the Dine With Dignity campaign six months ago. And in light of the Fair Food agreements between the CIW and seven multibillion-dollar, multinational food retailers, Aramark's excuses arrive dead on arrival in 2009.

Who We Are

Since 2001, Fair Food Austin has organized with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) for fair wages and dignified working conditions in the U.S. agricultural industry. The CIW is a farmworker organization headquartered in Immokalee, Florida with over 4,000 members. The CIW has aided in the prosecution by the Department of Justice of six slavery operations and the liberation of well over 1,000 workers.

We use creative methods to educate consumers about the human rights crisis farmworkers face and to promote the Campaign for Fair Food. The campaign requires large food corporations -- from Taco Bell to Whole Foods -- to demand more humane labor standards from their Florida tomato suppliers, to pay a premium price for more fairly produced tomatoes, and to buy only from growers who meet those higher standards.

Brutal conditions in Florida's fields may seem distant to consumers deep in the heart of Texas, but many of the restaurant and supermarket chains that have helped create this crisis are present in our community and buy Florida tomatoes at some point during the year. Human rights are universal, and by working together, farmworkers and consumers can create a better world.