News
(UPDATED COVERAGE, Feb. 16) A Florida farmworker group is claiming victory in its attempts to pressure tomato buyers to pay more money to farmworkers, signing up Trader Joe’s to its penny-per-pound increase plan.
So far, the program has paid farmworkers millions of dollars in extra pay.
Immokalee, Fla.-based Coalition of Immokalee Workers and Monrovia, Calif.-based Trader Joe’s Co. signed an agreement that formalizes how the supermarket chain plans to work with the CIW and Florida’s tomato growers in paying tomato workers an extra penny per pound.
The agreement, announced Feb. 9, follows the mid-February opening of Trader Joe’s in Naples, Fla., its first Florida store.
Trader Joe’s declined to comment.
In the deal, Trader Joe’s in the deal agrees to pay the extra penny to be passed onto workers through the growers’ payroll system, said Gerardo Reyes, a CIW spokesman.
Reyes said the CIW manages the agreements tomato buyers make with the CIW and said he isn’t sure who sells to the retailer. As the extra funds are tied to purchase volumes, Reyes said how much money any individual buyer pays into to the fair food program remains confidential. He said contract confidentiality also protects disclosure of volume information.
“This deal comes at a really important time,” Reyes said. “Trader Joe’s is sending the message that they would buy from Florida and that they are committing to buy from the growers that are participating under that fair food code of conduct. This galvanizes the relationship with the Florida tomato industry to improve labor standards despite the challenges in the marketplace now.”
Trader Joes’ has 376, primarily in the West and Pacific Northwest, but there are locations throughout the country.
In 2009, Mulberry, Fla.-based East Coast Brokers and Packers Inc. became the first large commercial Florida tomato grower and packer to strike a deal with the CIW by entering into agreements with Denver-based Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. and contract foodservice purveyor Compass Group North America.
Other growers, including Palmetto, Fla.-based Pacific Tomato Growers Ltd., entered into similar deals before the Maitland-based Florida Tomato Growers Exchange in late 2010 signed a deal committing its grower members to pass onto workers the additional funds paid by tomato buyers.
Last season and through January, buyers paid more than $4 million through the program, Reyes said. Participating buyers cover all the costs of increasing worker incomes, he said.
The funds go directly to payroll expenses, with at least 87% of all amounts passed from growers to workers. Reyes said. Growers may retain the remaining funds to pay for additional payroll and related taxes incurred by the higher wages, he said.
Growers bear some expenses, Reyes said, including the elimination of the practice of cupping buckets. The new standard credits workers for all the pounds they harvest, Reyes said.
Additionally, the farms pay for improvements such as the code-required providing shade in the fields and growers support ongoing worker education by having that done on the clock, he said.
|
ThePacker.com Home News Leadership Video Opinion Careers About Us Advertise |
Other Websites The Grower Produce Retailer Red Book Credit Services Produce Market Guide Greenbook |
©2012 Vance Publishing Corporation Terms of Use Privacy Policy Copyright 
|
Comments (9)
Leave a commentjohn
Report AbuseI just hope the workers actually get the money and the organization CIWI does not spend it or steal it
Scott
Report AbuseThis is just a PR game. The buyers will pay the going price for the tomatoes, as dictated by the market. The growers will pay their workers what they need to in order to have the a staff that gets the job done, and in this economy, the workers will be happy to have jobs. When the economy improves, wages will go up. This is how capitalism and the free market work. Agreements like this are useless.
Paul
Report AbuseIt is amazing how some of these large organizations can put some words down for goodwill and then turn around, tell their workers they are lucky to have employment. Once again, it is the upward profit scenario, where the money generated by the people who do the manual labor see the least amount of money forward. As you all know, when markets fall, the retailers seem to look the other direction and the consumer pays the going rate, because they need to keep their margins at acceptable levels.
richard
Report AbuseIs this cost going to be passed on to the consumer? Many people in Florida are either on fixed income or on food stamps so are we fixing one problem (low wages to farm workers) and creating another one
Ray
Report AbuseWell as a grower of tomatoes I can guarantee those people on Welfare and food stamps will not be picking tomatoes, thank God there are migrant workers actually willing to pick the product, or else this country would starve.
Jeff
Report AbuseI’m not telling this audience anything they don't know, but a mere penny per lb actually works out to be a a 60% wage increase…do the math:
Existing pay per 32lb bucket:
0.0156 x 32 lbs = .4992 paid per bucket
Pay with additional .01 per lb
0.0156 + .01 = .025625 x 32 = .8192 per bucket
Thus .4992/.8192 - .609% increase per bucket.
At 12 buckets per/hr – 12 x .8192 = 9.83 per hr. What’s the federal min wage??? It would be nice if the press share this side of the coin.
Dan
Report AbuseThis is just the beginning. Wait till the bell pepper, orange, and every other commodity harvest crew realizes the bonanza of holding growers hostage to what can be deemed as extortion.
Are we aware of the repercussion?
Ronni
Report AbuseExtortion? CIW keeping the money? Really? The Fair Food Agreement puts a stop to sexual harrassment and abuse. It insures water breaks and shade. It makes sure there is a teimclock so hours are properly recorded and paid out. This is standard in EVERY other industry in the country. What are you all thinking about? Maybe the exploitation isn't on the side of the farmworker. Sure sounds that way to me.
Tom Joad
Report AbuseExactly, Ronni. This is a win-win for farmworkers and the growers. The only way in which the FL tomato industry will be able to distinguish itself from (and beat out) the MX tomato industry is never gonna be on price, but rather on quality and social responsibility. The CIW is doing the hard work of lining up major purchasers for FL tomatoes. Too bad Publix and others have their central Florida good-'ol-boy heads too far up their asses to become a part of this.
And there is no way the CIW can "keep" a single tenth of a penny from this because the CIW never sees the money -- it is distributed from the retailer to the grower, and then from the grower to the workers as part of their normal payroll system -- often as an extra line-item in the paycheck. Don't believe me? Come to Immokalee and see the checks for yourself.