Fair Trade and Labor Practices in the Food System

BACK TO: Food System Sustainability Issues

The exploitation of the farm workers is the foundation of the North America food industry. This is a system of food production based on the delivery of a good supply of cheap products to the consumer society. The abundance of food and low prices are possible due to the inhuman exploitation of the farm workers.

Although NAFTA has increased imports of cheap North American food, a few corporations are the only beneficiaries. The rest of the population not only doesn’t benefit from this food production system, but is paying the consequences. Small producers and family farmers continue to disappear. The American Indian have been disconnected from agriculture production. In the South, Black ownership of the land may end by the next century.

For our people and our communities, for the whole society, the challenge today is to deal with this food system imposed upon us by a handful of greedy corporations, with the support of governments who have abandoned their social responsibilities.

Since our voices have been ignored time and time again, it is very important the concerns of the farm worker groups and of the peasants and their families are taken into account. It’s very important that society support all and every farm worker organizing effort. It is not enough to stop eating something to show solidarity. Real support means directly supporting the farm workers struggling in Ohio, Florida, California, the U.S.-Mexico border and in every place of the country.

- Carlos Marentes
Border Agricultural Workers Project

New York

New York State Attorney General
Greengrocer Code of Conduct

New York City Restaurant Industry Coalition
Behind the Kitchen Door: Pervasive Inequality in New York City’s Thriving Restaurant Industry
Dining Out, Dining Healthy: The Link Between Public Health and Working Conditions in New York City’s Restaurant Industry

Brennan Center for Justice, 2007
Unregulated Work in the Restaurant Industry in New York City

City of New York Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs
New York City Restaurant Owner Manual
The basics pertaining to wages, hours of work, consumer protection, employment discrimination, public accommodations, worker health and safety, and more.

National Employment Law Project, 2008 Proposed Change to New York City Law
The Responsible Restaurant Act

UFCW, United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 1500
Grocery Workers Justice Project

Justice for Farmworkers (New York State)
Resources for supporters of the Farmworker Fair Labor Practices Act

New York Times Editorial
Farm Workers’ Rights, 70 Years Overdue

Cornell Farmworker Program

National

Equal Exchange
Our mission is to build long-term trade partnerships that are economically just and environmentally sound, to foster mutually beneficial relationships between farmers and consumers and to demonstrate, through our success, the contribution of worker co-operatives and Fair Trade to a more equitable, democratic and sustainable world. Equal Exchange now offers organic and sustainably grown coffees, teas, chocolates, cocoas, and snacks from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the United States.

The Oakland Institute Backgrounder
Uprooted and Criminalized: The Impact of Free Markets on Migrants

Carlos Marentes, Border Agricultural Workers Project
Food Production under Globalism and Neoliberalism: The Plight of the Workers of the Land

Rural Coalition/Coalición Rura
U.S. Policy and Mexican Guestworkers

United Farm Workers

CATA - El Comité de Apoyo a los Trabajadores Agricolas/The Farmworker Support Committee

Coalition of Immokalee Workers
Florida agricultural workers’ rights organization working to eliminate modern-day slavery and sweatshop labor conditions from Florida agriculture

Alliance for Fair Food
a network of human rights, religious, student, labor, sustainable food and agriculture, environmental and grassroots organizations who work in partnership with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers