Trader Joe's Signs Fair Food Agreement On Tomatoes With Immokalee Workers

Trader Joe's relented this week and signed a Fair Food Agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a community-based organization of mainly Latino, Mayan Indian and Haitian immigrants employed in low-wage jobs in Florida. The agreement requires the grocery store to pay a penny more per pound of tomatoes and to ensure better working conditions for tomato workers.

In the past year, protesters have become a common sight at Trader Joe's locations across the country in response to the chain's refusal to sign the agreement. Chains like Taco Bell, McDonald's, Burger King and Whole Foods all signed the agreement years ago.

"This is nearly a 50 percent raise for the workers," Barry Estabrook, the writer behind PoliticsOfThePlate.com and author of the book "Tomatoland" (about large-scale tomato agriculture), told The Huffington Post. "These are desperately poor people."

"We are truly happy today to welcome Trader Joe's aboard the Fair Food Program," said Gerardo Reyes of the CIW, in a jont press release issued by the coalition and Trader Joe's. "Trader Joe's is cherished by its customers for a number of reasons, but high on that list is the company's commitment to ethical purchasing practices. With this agreement, Trader Joe's reaffirms that commitment and sends a strong -- and timely -- message of support to the Florida growers who are choosing to do the right thing, investing in improved labor standards, despite the challenges of a difficult marketplace and tough economic times."

Although jointly issued, the press release did not have a comment directly from Trader Joe's. The grocery chain told HuffPost via email that it had nothing further to say beyond the release.

Estabrook, who last spoke to Trader Joe's in the fall of 2011, said he found the company's attitude to be "almost belligerent" when a group of religious leaders tried to present it with a petition in October of last year. But the CIW had a 40-city protest planned for this weekend, and Trader Joe's may have felt compelled to finally sign on, he said. The protests have now been canceled.

"Trader Joe's presents an image of friendliness and fairness. When you're doing that, you can't very well have a group of people demonstrating in front of your stores," Estabrook said. The CIW now plans to focus its attention on the major supermarket chain Publix, and has a six-day fast planned for next month.

Trader Joe's opened its first Florida store in Naples on Friday, one day after signing the CIW agreement. In a weird twist of fate, the store is located on Immokalee Road.

Comments

[Dontgivein]

09:25 PM on 03/05/2012

We should add an option to pay an extra 1 or 2 cents per pound at the grocery stores for consumers who want to support this cause. Everyone wins because those that think it is important will pay the extra, those that don't will spend their money on their own causes and not have someone elses forced down their throat. Any store that gives in to this obvious extortion demonstrates they will give in to any extortion and in the end we all boycott tomatoes and the whole industry is (hopefully) decimated. I will only shop at stores that don't give in to extortion.

[Dontgivein]

09:20 PM on 03/05/2012

The right thing would be for grocery stores to add an option for consumers to pay an extra penny per pound for tomatoes if they want to ... those that support the workers will pay it, those that don't, wont. Everyone wins! Even make it 2 cents a pound more since, say, half the people won't support it. Personally I would like to see a boycott of stores that give in to extortion because once you show that you will give in, the line of extortionists will be endless.

[jjkoztown]

04:18 PM on 02/29/2012

Is that why their prices are so low?

[ninjacb]

04:02 PM on 02/14/2012

we do have the right and the might. good job to all who made this concern their own.

[researcher1000]

12:21 PM on 02/14/2012

To me, human working conditions should be right for all. Slavery, regardless of legal status, is just not right. These are simple working people. How can anyone say that chaining them to their living quarters and not providing water and sewage is justifiable because they are illegal?

[Dontgivein]

09:29 PM on 03/05/2012

They do have an option to go home where they belong.

[RedDog79]

09:40 AM on 02/14/2012

wow a whole penny a pound - come on Trader Joe's your food is overpriced certainly you can do better than a penny a pound.

[cuoi]

01:24 PM on 02/13/2012

TOMATOLAND by Barry Estabrook
Slavery. In 2012????!!!!!!!
US District Attorney has prosecuted a few cases.
Collier County Sheriff's Detective Charlie Frost has told interested legislators about his observations and findings. No republicans interested.

[Viper1st]

09:12 AM on 02/13/2012

1 cent per pound? Laughable

How about the U.S. Consumers, sign an agreement to pay an additional $1.00 per pound for tomatoes?

Enabling those unscrupulous Florida tomato farmers, exploiting cheap slave wage illegals, to pay their tomato pickers a livable wage of $12.00/hr?

Is not the problem with the hypocritcial, two-faced U.S. Consumer? Their attitude expecting cheap food, and then, bastardizing the way in which the "cheap" food is produced

Solution? The U.S. Consumer, can not have it both ways ~ want farm produce laborers not to be poor & working conditions improved ~ then expect to pay more for produce at the grocery store

[paulmely]

01:05 PM on 02/13/2012

Speak for yourself. Please don't offer to spend my money for me. If you want to pay more you are welcome to do so. I didn't ask these law breaking illegals to come here in the first place. If their plight bothers you so much, why don't you put them up at your house and feed and clothe them. Until you do that, don't call anyone else hypocritical.

[Viper1st]

03:14 PM on 02/13/2012

Wow!

Do tomatoes produced by illegal means, utilitizing the cheap slave labor of illegals, taste that much better?

Than ~ tomatoes raised by legal means? Utilizing mechanical harvesters, H2A Visa holders, LPR/ Green Card recepients and/or U.S. Citizens?

[BurritoT]

03:57 AM on 02/13/2012

Anything to make the working conditions of those poor illegal aliens doing jobs that legal Americans don't want to do.

[xdecolonizex]

09:21 AM on 02/13/2012

The agricultural industry is always has a high demand for workers, so gee I wonder where the legal Americans are at to take them jobs away from those unskilled aliens. I wonder if the reason they don't show up has something to do with the working conditions and the pay. Hmm..and what if we had an immigration system that functioned and those workers could ideally all be legal and hold visas from their respective countries? Instead, we like to keep millions of people in the shadows doing our work while as a society we treat them as second class citizens--this was not an accident, it was by design my friend.

[researcher1000]

01:35 PM on 02/14/2012

You are absolutely right.

[BurritoT]

01:33 AM on 02/17/2012

You know what ... I agree with you 100%. I wonder why the people on the Left who support Illegals never talk about getting these benefits to them.

We could set up Job Camps near the border... if Strawberry Business A needs to hire 500 people then 500 people get in, and with proper documentation.

[the brights]

10:20 AM on 02/12/2012

Just another thought-- nobody has mentioned how tasteless these nasty tomatoes from Florida are... Not only artificially ripened with ethylene gas, but also genetically modified to grow in humid environments. Yuck.

[bookreader451]

05:58 PM on 02/12/2012

once I started growing my own heirlooms all grocery store tomatoes are tasteless to me.

[BluebirdofUnhappiness]

01:51 PM on 02/13/2012

Pretty sure GM tomatoes are no longer sold.

[RedDog79]

09:44 AM on 02/14/2012

yeah I doubt that. any plant that is bred for specific characteristics is genetically modified. Mendel's peas tells you all you need to know about genetic modification for specific characteristics.

[Frank-Landfield]

09:56 AM on 02/12/2012

Finally

[terroh8er]

08:12 AM on 02/12/2012

Months later: "Liberals boycott Trader Joe's; complain of high tomato prices"

[Lavafalls]

08:20 AM on 02/12/2012

yes, that penny a pound will really send those prices skyrocketing.

[terroh8er]

07:35 PM on 02/12/2012

That penny a pound means they are paying 65% more for their tomatoes.

[paddlerchick]

08:23 AM on 02/12/2012

No, liberals just grow their own.

[bookreader451]

05:52 PM on 02/12/2012

I know I do.

[PapaFoote]

07:59 AM on 02/12/2012

Today,

TJ has done the RIGHT thing - I'm happy because I really like to shop in their stores!

The Old Goat

[Cody30]

06:46 AM on 02/12/2012

Welcome aboard? Protesting till they relent. That is how you get people to do what you want them to do.

Yeah, I am sure they are happy to have been forced to do something they did not want too. Sure it might have been the right thing,but being forced into it this way shows they really are not interested.Guess the protests hit their bottom line too much.

[Lanny Clifford]

08:28 AM on 02/12/2012

Thank you Cody30
You just described the GOP/TP perfectly.

[nnanciejean]

09:57 AM on 02/12/2012

Actually that's the union you are describing. But nice spin.

[IBWatching]

03:58 AM on 02/12/2012

Trader Joe's donates tons of packaged food to local food banks, so I am surprised that they risked their image over such a small concession.

Shows what corporate greed will do.

[stringzz]

08:49 AM on 02/12/2012

It has nothing to do with corporate greed. They will just pass the cost onto the consumer, economics 101. What this really has to do with is giving in to terrorist protest groups. If they give in to one, then others will come out of the woodwork. Then you are passing on more costs to you customers and that hurts your business, economics 101. Unions are good at hurting businesses, history 101.

[the brights]

09:17 AM on 02/12/2012

Please access the CIW website for more information before voicing your opinion... I would hardly refer to them as a "terrorist protest group" and they are NOT A UNION!

[Donald Kinge]

08:33 PM on 02/12/2012

You lost credibility when you used the terrorist label...

[IBWatching]

07:17 PM on 02/12/2012

Educate yourself.