Winning a partnership with buyers In 2001, the CIW declared a national
boycott of Taco Bell, marking the launch of the Campaign for Fair Food. The Campaign's key slogan—"Taco Bell makes farmworkers poor"—captured the essence of the CIW's thinking: when major buyers such as Taco Bell leverage their volume purchasing power to demand discounts from their suppliers, they create strong downward pressure on wages and working conditions in these suppliers' operations. A 2004 study by
Oxfam America confirmed this trend: "Squeezed by the buyers of their produce, growers pass on the costs and risks imposed on them to those on the lowest rung of the supply chain: the farmworkers they employ." During the Taco Bell Boycott, the CIW worked closely with religious and community groups and a student network, the
Student/Farmworker Alliance, to pressure Taco Bell from different angles. The idea was that collaboration was built on a shared self-interest for desired change. For Immokalee farmworkers, that change was higher wages and improved working conditions. For their allies, the change was ethical consumption. From this foundation, a national consumer-network enlisting students, faith organizations, food and environmental justice advocates, and socially responsible investors formed to hold retail food industry brands accountable for human rights abuses in their produce supply chains. On March 8, 2005,
Yum! Brands, Inc., parent company of Taco Bell, agreed to all of the CIW's demands, including: • The first-ever direct, ongoing payment by a fast-food industry leader to farmworkers in its supply chain to address sub-standard farm labor wages (nearly doubling the percentage of the final retail price that goes to the workers who pick the produce); • The first-ever enforceable Code of Conduct for agricultural suppliers in the fast-food industry (which includes the CIW as part of the investigative body for monitoring worker complaints); • Market incentives for agricultural suppliers willing to respect their workers' human rights, even when those rights are not guaranteed by law; • 100% transparency for Taco Bell's tomato purchases in Florida. After the Taco Bell Boycott, the Campaign for Fair Food shifted its focus to the rest of the
fast-food industry. In response to the campaign, McDonald's helped create an industry-controlled code of conduct known as SAFE (Socially Accountable Farm Employers) that the CIW and its allies deemed insufficient. On April 9, 2007, an agreement between McDonald's and the CIW was announced at the
Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia. The agreement, which met the standards previously set by the Taco Bell accord, also included a commitment by McDonald's to work with the CIW to develop an industry-wide third-party mechanism to monitor conditions and investigate abuses in the fields. In May 2008, at the U.S. Capitol, the CIW announced an agreement with
Burger King. The world's second-largest burger chain had originally strongly opposed the campaign, even going so far as to hire a private investigative firm to provide information on the Student/Farmworker Alliance. As part of the announcement, Burger King's chief executive, John W. Chidsey, apologized for prior negative remarks directed towards the CIW and went on to praise the group's efforts.
Subway, the largest fast-food buyer of Florida tomatoes, signed an agreement with the CIW six months later in December 2008. With this agreement, four of the world's largest fast-food companies were now supporting the campaign. The CIW and
Chipotle Mexican Grill reached a Fair Food Agreement on October 4, 2012, after a six-year campaign by the CIW. In September 2008, the CIW broke ground in the supermarket industry by signing an agreement with
Whole Foods Market. Karen Christensen, a Whole Foods executive explained, "We commend the CIW for their advocacy on behalf of these workers. After carefully evaluating the situation in Florida, we felt that an agreement of this nature was in line with our core values and was in the best interest of the workers." The Whole Foods agreement marked the first time a retailer agreed to support the CIW initiative without extended public protests. Throughout 2009 and 2010, the
Student/Farmworker Alliance's "Dine with Dignity" campaign targeted the
food service industry since many of these companies operate on college campuses. During this period, the CIW reached agreements with
Bon Appétit Management Company,
Compass Group,
Aramark, and
Sodexo. In February 2012, the CIW and
Trader Joe's "signed an agreement that formalizes the ways in which Trader Joe's will work with the CIW and Florida tomato growers to support the CIW's Fair Food Program." This was the first Fair Food agreement the CIW signed with a major food retailer in the aftermath of the 2010 breakthrough settlement with the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange. In January 2014,
Walmart, the largest grocery retailer in the U.S., announced it was joining the Fair Food Program. In its agreement with the CIW, Walmart committed to help expand the Fair Food Program outside of Florida and into crops other than tomatoes. Alexandra Guáqueta, chair of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, attended the signing ceremony and conveyed a statement on behalf of the Working Group. The statement praises the Fair Food Program for its "smart mix" of monitoring and enforcement tools, including "market incentives for growers and retailers, monitoring policies and, crucially, a robust and accessible mechanism to resolve complaints and provide remedy," adding, "Workers have no fear of retaliation if they identify problems." The statement concludes, "We are eager to see whether the Fair Food Program is able to leverage further change within participating businesses, and serve as a model elsewhere in the world." In 2015, the CIW signed Fair Food Agreements with
The Fresh Market and
Ahold (parent company of
Giant and
Stop & Shop). The Campaign for Fair Food is currently focused on Wendy's, in addition to several supermarket chains who remain uncommitted to the Fair Food Program, including
Publix and
Kroger. In March 2023, a group of around 100 farm workers launched a protest march across Florida to pressure both Publix and Kroger to join the Fair Food Program, and to highlight their deplorable working conditions, including forced labor. The CIW innovative campaigning strategy has not gone unchallenged. For instance, in November 2017, the
Center for Union Facts filed a complaint with the
Internal Revenue Service asserting the CIW "does not serve the public at large but instead a group of workers seeking concessions from their employers." The union watchdog requested that "the IRS examine CIW's Forms 990 for 2013, 2014, and 2015, and, if appropriate, revoke its tax-exempt status." The complaint was investigated by the Trump Administration Department of Labor and ultimately dismissed.
Winning a Partnership with Growers In November 2007, the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange (FTGE), an agricultural cooperative that provides its grower members with limited antitrust protection for marketing their products, announced that the Taco Bell/Yum and McDonald's deals "will not be executed and now are considered moot." Citing antitrust concerns, the FTGE threatened its members with $100,000 (~$ in ) fines for cooperating with McDonald's or Yum Brands. One month later, FTGE Vice President Reggie Brown explained, "I think it is un-American when you get people outside your business to dictate terms of business to you." As a result of the FTGE's resistance, the penny-per-pound funds accrued during the stalemate were held in escrow. On April 15, 2008, the
United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) held hearings on "Ending Abuses and Improving Working Conditions for Tomato Workers" in which Reggie Brown claimed farmworkers earned an average wage of "between $10.50 and $14.86 per hour." Lucas Benitez of the CIW and Senators
Bernie Sanders (VT-I) and
Dick Durbin (IL-D) disputed Brown's claim by citing contradictory evidence. The senators also scrutinized the legal basis for the FTGE's resistance to the Campaign for Fair Food. In November 2010, an agreement was reached between the CIW and the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange to implement the Fair Food Program – "including a strict code of conduct, a cooperative complaint resolution system, a participatory health and safety program, and a worker-to-worker education process – to over 90% of the Florida tomato industry". Workers could receive an increase in annual wages from $10,000–12,000 a year to $17,000 if additional large buyers agree to the increase. In an editorial, the
New York Times described the agreement as a "remarkable victory in a 15-year struggle for better pay and working conditions... The Immokalee victory won't impose fairness overnight, but after generations of exploitation, part of the farm industry is pointing in the right direction."
Timeline ==Fair Food Program==