James Brudney was quoted in a New York Times article about tomato pickers’ successful labor-organizing efforts, and how their model might apply to the wider agricultural industry.
A program created by a group that organizes farmworkers has persuaded companies like Walmart and McDonald’s to buy their tomatoes from growers who follow strict labor standards. But high-profile holdouts have threatened to halt the effort’s progress.
Now the group, a nonprofit called the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, is raising pressure on one of the most prominent holdouts — Wendy’s — which it sees as an obstacle to expansion.
The Immokalee workers’ initiative, called the Fair Food Program, currently benefits about 35,000 laborers, primarily in Florida. Over the last decade, it has helped transform the state’s tomato industry from one in which wage theft and violence were rampant to an industry with the some of the highest labor standards in American agriculture.
…The stakes go far beyond tomatoes. In the coming years, the Immokalee workers hope to bring their model to a variety of crops in many states, where tens of thousands of workers are still vulnerable to abuses.
But to do so effectively, said James Brudney, a law professor at Fordham University who has studied farm labor, it is important to show buyers and growers that they can’t avoid taking part in the long run.
“They want to be able to make clear that this is a serious market penetration,” Mr. Brudney said.
