I’ve been following food politics for years, but it wasn’t until I heard Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, speak at Slow Food that I learned more about migrant rights. I knew slaughterhouse workers had it bad, but Schlosser made an impression on me when he said, “If your diet is vegan nowadays, a large chunk of your diet is probably grown by migrant workers in slave-like conditions.” This is where the forefront of the food revolution lies today: beyond local, grassfed, organic and all the artisanal foods. It’s about Fair Food, grown in fair terms.
Schlosser talked about horrible conditions in Northern San Diego county and in Napa, where workers live in poverty close to multi-million dollar homes. But farmworkers in Florida, who provide most of the country’s fruits and vegetables, seem to have it the worst. These people have to pick up to two tons of tomatoes to make a mere $50, they get no benefits, work overtime with no additional pay, pay to go to the doctor, and don’t qualify within a poverty level due to their full-time job status.
It’s taken years of commitment, persistence, and even thirty-day hunger strikes for these workers to make a statement against corporate food giants and get the smallest of pay raises thanks to the Alliance for Fair Food. Taco Bell, Mc Donald’s, and Burger King are now paying a penny more per pound of tomatoes out of their own pockets for the workers at the bottom of the supply chain.
Lucas Benitez, leader of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida explained that, “Sustainable food isn’t just about animal rights, and the environment, but also the farmworkers that bend their backs that make sure food gets to each and every one of you.”
Large businesses need to fulfill huge demands and dictate product pricing. We eat their tomato products all the time, and yet have hardly heard of any of them. Huge buyers like Subway, Walmart, Chipotle, in turn, demand incredibly low prices when the tomatoes hit the market.
Grist has an interview with Schlosser you can watch here and you can learn a lot on the Slow Food site.
In the meantime, as yummy as those Chipotle burritos might be, a boycott may be in order to demand that they too pay migrant workers living wages.
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