FAIR FOOD PROGRAM 2015 ANNUAL REPORT WORKER-DRIVEN SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY Comprehensive, Verifiable and Sustainable Change for U.S
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FAIR FOOD PROGRAM 2015 ANNUAL REPORT WORKER-DRIVEN SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY Comprehensive, Verifiable and Sustainable Change for U.S. Farmworkers and the Agricultural Industry i ii F oreword This is the third annual report by the Fair Food Standards Council on the state of the Fair Food Program. It includes an assessment of the Program’s first four years of implementation in the Florida tomato industry as well as the inaugural season of Program expansion to Florida-based growers’ tomato operations in Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey. The reporting period begins on September 1, 2014 and runs through October 14, 2015. This report contains many important updates to last year’s report, while also providing key contextual information on the origins, objectives and structure of the Program. iii About FFSC Mission The mission of the Fair Food Standards Council (FFSC) is to monitor the development of a sustainable agricultural industry that advances the human rights of farmworkers, the long-term interests of growers, and the ethical supply chain concerns of retail food companies through implementation of the Fair Food Program. For more information, visit fairfoodstandards.org. Board of Directors Rev. Noelle Damico, National Economic and Social Rights Initiative Dr. Patrick Mason, Department of Economics, Florida State University Cheryl Queen, Vice President of Corporate Communications, Compass Group Nely Rodríguez, Coalition of Immokalee Workers Gerardo Reyes Chávez, Coalition of Immokalee Workers Steven Hitov, Coalition of Immokalee Workers Executive Director Judge Laura Safer Espinoza is a recently retired New York State Supreme Court Justice who served in New York and Bronx Counties for twenty years. She was Deputy Supervising Judge for five years. Justice Safer Espinoza helped to design, and became the first presiding judge of, the Bronx Treatment Court, an innovative alternative to incarceration for non-vio- lent offenders. Justice Safer Espinoza has an extensive history of work with government, human rights and legal organizations in the US and Latin America. She has taught and lectured extensively on judicial transparency in Latin America, working with nu- merous organizations – including the US Department of State, the Conference of Western Attorney Generals, law schools, universities, governments and non-governmental organizations – to support law reform efforts by training advocates in more transparent legal systems. From 2009 through 2011, she designed and directed trainings for thousands of judges and attorneys in Mexico. Judge Safer Espinoza has also helped to launch and advise treatment courts in Chile and Brazil. She authored the keystone chapter of Chile’s first book on alternative courts in 2006. Justice Safer Espinoza received her BA from Barnard College and her JD cum laude from New York Law School. She is a recipient of the City University of New York’s Women in the Law Award and a 2015 Purpose Prize from Encore.org. iv Fair Food Program Participants Participating Buyers Ahold USA Compass Group Trader Joe’s Aramark The Fresh Market Wal-Mart Bon Appétit Management Co. McDonald’s Whole Foods Market Burger King Sodexo Yum Brands Chipotle Mexican Grill Subway Participating Growers Ag-Mart Harllee Packing Big Red Tomato Packers Hunsader Farms Classie Growers/Falkner Farms Palmetto Vegetable Company South Florida Tomato Growers Del Monte Fresh Production Kern Carpenter Farms DiMare Homestead Circle D Lady Moon Farms Lipman Produce DiMare Ruskin HarDee/Diamond D Pacific Tomato Growers Triple D Taylor and Fulton Packing Utopia Farms Farmhouse Tomatoes Tomatoes of Ruskin Gargiulo Artesian Farms Gulfstream Tomato Packers Diehl and Lee Farms Hagan Farms Frank Diehl Farms MED Farms TOR Farms West Coast Tomato/McClure Farms For a weekly updated list of Participating Growers in good standing, please visit fairfoodstandards.org/participating_growers. v photo: Scott Melanie Robertson Stetson Freeman for the Christian Science Monitor vi Table of Contents Foreword ......................................................iii Executive Summary .............................................. 2 Introduction .................................................... 4 Background ................................................ 4 Growing Recognition for the Fair Food Program ..................... 4 Forging Structural Change ..................................... 5 The Road Ahead ............................................. 7 Process ....................................................... 8 The Fair Food Program Model .................................. 8 Implementation Timetable .................................... 10 Outcomes ..................................................... 13 Creating a Culture of Risk Prevention ............................ 13 Code Requirements ......................................... 15 FFSC Auditing ......................................... 15 Direct Hiring .......................................... 17 Zero Tolerance for Forced Labor, Child Labor, Violence & Sexual Assault 20 Sexual Harassment and Discrimination in the Workplace .......... 21 Worker-to-Worker Education Sessions ........................ 24 Education at the Point of Hire .............................. 25 Complaint Procedure .................................... 26 Timekeeping Systems .................................... 30 Bucket-Filling Standard ................................... 32 Fair Food Premium ...................................... 33 Health and Safety Committees ............................. 36 Shade in the Fields ...................................... 37 Progressive Discipline Policies ............................. 38 H-2A ................................................ 40 By the Numbers ............................................ 44 Audits ............................................... 44 Complaints ............................................ 45 Fair Food Premium ...................................... 50 Education Sessions ...................................... 52 Conclusion .................................................... 54 Challenges ................................................ 54 Opportunities .............................................. 55 Appendix A: CIW Remarks at the White House Forum on Combating Human Trafficking in Supply Chains . 58 Appendix B: Fair Food Standards Council Testimony to the EEOC Select Task Force on Workplace Harassment ................................. 60 Appendix C: CIW Remarks at the United Nations Annual Form on Business and Human Rights ............................................... 62 Appendix D: Fair Food Code of Conduct ............................. 64 References .....................................................70 © 2015 Fair Food Standards Council. Unless noted, all photographs by Shane Donglasan. Executive Summary For decades, farmworkers in the US have experienced • Industry-wide monitoring by FFSC. sub-standard wages and working conditions. Today, this These changes have been implemented through an reality has changed for many, thanks to the Fair Food intensive, multi-faceted process with significant reach Program (FFP). throughout the industry. Through the Fair Food Program: The Fair Food Program, which grew out of the Coalition • CIW has educated nearly 35,000 workers at of Immokalee Workers’ (CIW) Campaign for Fair Food, 400 face-to-face sessions, and reached 150,000 brings together workers, consumers, growers and retail workers with written and video materials, food companies in support of fair wages and humane on their rights within the Program; labor standards in the agricultural industry. The FFP is a pathfinding collaboration premised on risk prevention, • Workers have brought forth over 1,100 complaints supply chain transparency, and the verifiable, market- under the Code of Conduct, resulting in the enforced protection of workers’ rights, monitored by the resolution of abuses ranging from sexual harassment and verbal abuse to systemic wage violations, Fair Food Standards Council (FFSC). demonstrating workers’ trust that reported The Fair Food Program is the leading example of a new problems will be investigated and corrected; and and growing form of human rights protection known as • FFSC has issued nearly 120 comprehensive reports Worker-driven Social Responsibility (WSR). In the WSR and corrective action plans – based on 12,000 approach, the workers whose rights are at issue play a worker interviews during audits ranging from two leading role in the definition, monitoring, and protection days to two weeks and integrating operational, of those rights, enforcement is at a premium, and retail management and financial systems reviews – in brands make a binding commitment to support that order to assess and improve Participating Growers’ enforcement with their purchases. implementation of the Code of Conduct. Since its launch in 2011, the Fair Food In June 2015, after four seasons of successful Program has brought about many far- implementation across the Florida reaching reforms across the 35,000 tomato industry, the FFP expanded acres of the $650 million Florida to several tomato operations tomato industry, including: in Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland Nearly $20 million in Fair • and New Jersey. During the Food Premiums paid by Par- 2015-2016 growing season, ticipating Buyers to improve the Program is expanding to workers’ wages; crops other than tomatoes • Industry-wide implementation for the first time, including of