People Putting Food First #110
1. Legal Mexican “guest workers” fired for striking against slave-like conditions in Amite, Louisiana
2. Whole Foods Market refuses to meet with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers about the human rights violations in the Florida tomato fields that supply the company
3. South Africa’s Abalimi Bezekhaya ('Planters of the Home') Stimulates Urban Agriculture and Community in Cape Town
1. Legal Mexican “guest workers” fired for striking against slave-like conditions in Amite, Louisiana
Thirty Mexicans, brought to the U.S. under H2A visas which are attached to specific worksites, paid close to $1,000 to be delivered to their employer, Bimbo’s Best Produce, Inc. Upon arrival their passports were confiscated and they were forced to pick strawberries for as little as $2 per hour.
On Valentine’s Day 2008, they walked off the fields while a delegation of African Americans from The New Orleans Center for Racial Justice attempted to conduct a citizen’s arrest of their boss, Charles “Bimbo” Relan, because he violated federal laws that define slavery, peonage, human trafficking, and servitude in the U.S. Relan returned the passports, fired the workers and illegally evicted them.
According to Gerald Lenoir of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, “Strawberries are back-breaking work—they were bent down over bushes for hours. When they stopped to stretch, Bimbo yelled that he would deport them back to Mexico. They weren’t given water, or allowed to use the bathroom…. The workers invited us to a meeting and described their conditions. We told them: as African Americans we recognize what you’re describing, and we are with you.”
The workers are now in hiding in New Orleans and seeking financial support to pursue their case with the FBI and the Department of Justice. Contributions to the strike fund can be sent to the National Immigration Law Center, 3435 Wilshire Blvd, Ste 2850, Los Angeles, CA 90010.
http://www.wwltv.com/video/news-index.html?nvid=218183&she=1
http://www.neworleansworkerjustice.org/
http://www.blackalliance.org/
http://www.labornotes.org/node/1329
2. Whole Foods Market refuses to meet with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers about the human rights violations in the Florida tomato fields that supply the company
Whole Foods Market, the world’s largest natural and organic supermarket, isn’t shy about touting its progressive environmental values. Some may think that the company holds the same values when it comes to labor. If you missed CEO John Mackey’s infamous 1992 comment about “unions being like herpes” or the company’s refusal to support a 1996 UFW campaign for strawberry pickers, and you simply read the Whole Foods website under “Whole Trade,” you’d probably assume that the company cares about workers here in the U.S. as much as they say they care about fair practices overseas.
The website says that Whole Food’s Whole Trade program “fosters a system that gives producers entry into the global marketplace by ensuring better wages and safer working conditions for workers”. If this is true, how could Whole Foods Market be selling tomatoes produced in Florida fields under conditions that have been called by a US Judge, “slavery, plain and simple?”
The Coalition of Immokalee workers (CIW) won a huge victory when Taco Bell and McDonalds agreed to give tomato pickers an extra 1-cent a pound. The pickers were making .45 cents per 32 pound bucket. For an idea of what this means in a worker’s day-to-day life consider that at 45 cents a pound, a picker must pick two tons of tomatoes in a 10-hour day to make the Federal minimum wage of $5.85 an hour. Thus what is a “drop in the bucket” to the corporations of paying 1 cent more per pound of tomatoes nearly doubles the wages of the workers.
Some Whole Foods Markets at certain times Santa Sweets tomatoes which are purchased from Ag-mart, a giant tomato grower with one of the worst records of human rights violations. On March 14, 2007 the CIW sent Whole Foods a letter seeking to partner with the company to address the human rights crisis in Florida. The letter did not even ask Whole Foods Market for an extra cent a pound, but rather requested a meeting to see how CIW and Whole Foods might work together for the betterment of the workers. Whole Foods Market claimed to have never received the certified letter.
On Monday, February 11, 2008 CIW representatives went to Whole Food’s global office in Austin, TX, where they hoped to deliver a new letter and perhaps meet with company representatives. A representative met them in the waiting room, took the letter and asked the group to leave, saying, not to back the company into a corner. This response is a huge disappointment from a company that has won accolades from PETA for beginning to establish standards for the treatment of farm animals. It was only after pressure from PETA that the farm animal standards were established. If Whole Foods customers start asking if their tomatoes were produced under slave conditions, the company might take notice. If consumers make enough noise and the CIW manages to peel back the layers of corporate gatekeepers, they may just get a meeting with John Mackey. He’s enough of a renegade to have met with PETA after being confronted at a shareholders meeting. He also met with Michael Pollan in front of an audience of a couple thousand potentially unfriendly Bay Area foodies after the author criticized his company in his widely read book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
Write letters to the company, call the corporate offices, and make a fuss. If Mackey’s blog ever comes back up, let him know how you feel about the modern day slavery going on in Florida’s tomato fields.
The Immokalee Worker’s Story:
http://www.ciw-online.org/Austin_Feb_2008.html
Independent Allegations of Slavery in Florida Tomato Fields:
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/issues/tomatoes.cfm
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2008/01/28/a...
Whole Foods Market and Labor Relations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Foods_Market#Labor_relations
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A115313
Whole Foods Market’s “Whole Trade” Program
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/pressroom/pr_03-29-07.html
Whole Foods Market and PETA:
http://www.peta.org/feat/proggy/2004/winners.html#retailer
Whole Foods Market’s Animal Compassion Standards:
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/issues/animalwelfare/index.html
Whole Foods Market and Michael Pollan:
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2007/02/28_pollanmackey.shtm...
John Mackey’s Blog: It’s down for now, but if it comes back, it allows comments.
http://wholefoodsmarket.com/socialmedia/jmackey
3. South Africa’s Abalimi Bezekhaya ('Planters of the Home') Stimulates Urban Agriculture and Community in Cape Town
Women in Cape Town are coming together as part of a community garden movement that does more than feed them. The gardens are springing up everywhere there is room, bringing formerly isolated women together, providing them with extra income, and instilling a sense of empowerment. It also provides food for their extended families and others who are sick and cannot work.
This is largely the result of the work of Abalimi Bezekhaya ('Planters of the Home'), started 25 years ago. Rob Small, the group’s resource mobilization manager talks about how, after early struggles women learned to stand on their own feet: "A few years ago the men were saying to the women… that they were being cheeky, now that they were becoming empowered through this movement; and often we were finding group leaders being banished back to the rural areas, with the men sitting in the garden consuming what was left. … [Now] there has been a major groundswell shift, where women have decided 'none of this anymore' – they've chased the men out and they're leading. They are saying men must work in their own gardens."
It has taken a lot of determination to get here. Another group that is helping out is Soil for Life, a Cape Town NGO. Pat Featherstone the operations director says: "There's so much that goes on in these communities that makes it really difficult to garden... in fact, often it's not about growing food, its about growing people." Soil for Life shows people how to build their own gardens and also buys half the produce from the owners.
A typical example is the Fezeka community garden in Gugulethu, where 72 year old Phillipina Ndamane co-owns a garden with five other women. It is about 3/4 of an acre and each women has her own plot, with a community area in the middle—from which they sell vegetables and share the profits. One of the co-owners, Shaba Esiteng, 77, describes the benefits to the larger community: "We are helping the others who don't work, the sick people... people who have HIV, old people – we help them with our vegetables."
As these gardens proliferate the sense of empowerment and community benefits grow along with them.
"These women are my sisters," says Regina Shiceka of her fellow Fezeka gardeners. "They are like family. If you have a problem, you can come and talk to them and they will help you."
"Before the garden we were sitting in our houses," says Phillipina Ndamane… [Now] the garden is strengthening us; it's why we are here every day. I enjoy this garden…. I will carry on till I die."
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This edition of People Putting Food First! e-newsletter was written by Food First development director Marilyn Borchardt, writer Vanessa Barrington, and associate Rick Jonasse. If you have stories, questions or feedback, please contact: info at foodfirst.org. To subscribe to this People Putting Food First e-newsletter go to www.foodfirst.org or simply hit reply and type the word subscribe in the subject line.
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