Founded in 1993, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW, Norman grantee 2008–2015) is led by immigrant farmworkers who organize for better wages, safer working conditions, and human rights. CIW built a broad coalition of students, faith communities and unions, linking farmworkers with allies across the country. They launched targeted boycotts of major food corporations who were purchasing tomatoes from growers committing labor abuses — starting with a four-year “Boot the Bell” campaign that led to 25 college campuses cutting ties with Taco Bell, pressuring its parent company, Yum Brands, to pay a penny more per pound of tomatoes in 2005. From there, CIW secured agreements from McDonald’s, Burger King, Whole Foods, and Aramark, with each new corporate agreement becoming leverage on the next holdout. In 2010, the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, which represents 90% of the state’s tomato industry, signed a landmark agreement with CIW to implement the changes farmworkers had demanded.

The Fair Food Program, formally launched in 2011, created an enforceable system — a code of conduct prohibiting sexual harassment, pesticide spraying, and wage theft; the right to water, breaks, and shade; and for the first time, workers being paid for all hours on the job. Major retail buyers committed to pay a penny more per pound for tomatoes and to source only from growers who abided by the code, giving the Fair Food Program and the farmworkers behind it real power. The program continues as an internationally recognized blueprint for worker-driven accountability in global supply chains, and has expanded into new crops, new states and countries, and new industries; it has been adapted by tomato growers in six additional states, corn growers in Colorado, dairy farmers in Vermont, and garment workers in Bangladesh.

Media: 

• CIW video: The Story Behind Your Food
• CNN video: The Fair Food Program