Coalition of Immokalee Workers

A farmworker takes a break to drink water. FFP farms comply with mandatory heat stress protections that include the provision of shade, water, electrolytes, rest breaks, training, and the ability to stop work and seek medical treatment without fear of retaliation

Every summer, extreme heat threatens the lives and health of the people who harvest our food. But the risks farmworkers face don’t disappear when temperatures cool. Long days of physically demanding work continue to strain the body throughout the year, in soaring temperatures and on cooler days alike.

That’s why, beginning August 1 of this year, every Fair Food Program participating grower will be required to provide electrolyte beverages or electrolyte supplements to workers year-round, further strengthening the Program’s industry-leading heat protections.

The new standard builds on what The Washington Post called “America’s strongest workplace heat rules,” and what Reuters just singled out as a successful cross-sector initiative amidst ever-rising temperatures. Workers on Fair Food Program farms already have what so many are fighting for: shade, clean drinking water, paid rest breaks, heat illness training, and the right to seek medical attention without fear of retaliation. Now, they will also have year-round access to electrolytes—an increasingly important safeguard as scientific research links prolonged heat exposure to chronic kidney disease and other serious health conditions.

This is how the Fair Food Program has always advanced over its 16 years in operation: Workers and growers identify problems, they collaborate on solutions, and together they raise the standards for an entire industry. For going on two decades now, that partnership has transformed agriculture time and time again, be it with the development of groundbreaking field truck safety standards or the carving out of a clean channel for H-2A worker recruitment. Today, tens of thousands of farmworkers across 22 states and three countries are protected by a worker-driven system of education, independent monitoring, rigorous audits, and legally binding market enforcement that has effectively eliminated forced labor, sexual violence, and other severe abuses from participating farms.

And the impact of that pioneering worker-driven approach is expanding every single day.

Worker organizations in industries ranging from construction to sugarcane, bananas, and the plant nursery industry are partnering with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to bring the Worker-driven Social Responsibility model to millions more workers across the country and around the globe.

That growth depends on people like you.

Every new protection the Fair Food Program wins—and every new industry where workers, suppliers, and corporate buyers plant the flag of this proven model—requires sustained support from people like you, people who believe a world without exploitation and abuse behind every product we consume is possible. 

That’s why we’re asking you to become a Fair Food Sustainer today.

Your monthly gift provides the reliable support that allows workers to organize, educate their coworkers, strengthen protections like this new electrolyte standard, and bring the Fair Food Program to new industries and countries. One-time donations make a difference. Monthly giving builds movements.

Now is the time to bring that model to millions more workers… but we can’t do it without you.

Click here to become a Sustainer.

Fair Food Nation! We’re kicking off our Summer Sustainer Drive!

For the next month, we’ll be spotlighting what makes the Fair Food Program (FFP) so extraordinarily effective, taking a look back at our achievements, and charting out the path ahead as we aim to expand the FFP’s best-in-class human rights protections to millions of workers not yet covered by the Program.  

And most importantly, over the next four weeks, we’ll be highlighting the vital role played by our Fair Food Program Sustainers, thousands of consumers like you, without whom the Fair Food Program would never have been possible.  

A few weeks ago, the CIW’s Greg Asbed and Gerardo Reyes Chavez sat down with Dave Chapman from the Real Organic Podcast, a nationally recognized weekly podcast from the farmer-led Real Organic Project, to reflect on the transformative power of the Fair Food Program and what it took to get it off the ground. Here’s the intro to their episode from iTunes:

Join us again for a deeper look at how the Coalition of Immokalee Workers turned one of the most exploited sectors of the food system into a model for change. They trace the path from wage theft, sexual violence, and modern-day slavery in the fields of Florida to a proven system of prevention that is now influencing labor protections across the globe and challenging the empty promises of corporate social responsibility to show what real accountability can look like.

Click on the short video below to see a few quick highlights from their podcast, or watch their full talk here. 

To expand the reach of the FFP, we’re asking everyone who can to become a Fair Food Program Sustainer with a monthly gift.

Even $10 a month can make a meaningful impact — helping prevent wage theft, sexual harassment and assault, and modern-day slavery for some of our country’s hardest workers, while protecting those who harvest our fruits and vegetables from unsafe — and all too often deadly — working conditions, from extreme heat exposure to pesticide poisoning. 

Already a Sustainer? Thank you. Your support helped us double the number of FFP participating growers and add new states to the FFP map, and help the CIW partner with worker and human rights organizations across the world seeking to bring the FFP’s protections to new industries! We ask that you continue your monthly donation — or, if possible, increase it! — so your support can grow with the Program and the broader Worker-driven Social Responsibility model.

Stay tuned next week as we dive deeper into how the Fair Food Program has grown over the years— and how your support powers this groundbreaking model.