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Tomato pickers win higher pay. Can other workers use their strategy?
Florida's tomato pickers took on some of the country's biggest retailers and fast-food chains - and won, transforming working conditions in
Freeman, Melanie Stetson http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2017/0309/Tomato-pickers-win-higher-pay.-Can-other-workers-use-their-strategy
Publisher: Christian Science Monitor
Date Written: 09/03/2017
Year Published: 2017
Resource Type: Article
Tactics like this protest outside Wendy's, repeated in cities across the country, have helped make the Coalition of Immokalee Workers one of the most successful worker organizations in the country. By applying pressure to corporations at the top of the supply chain, the big retailers and fast-food chains that buy tomatoes, the CIW has helped tens of thousands of mostly Hispanic immigrant workers who pick the bulk of the nation’s winter tomato crop.
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Many challenges remain. Nonunion consumer-driven campaigns are still small and relatively untested, especially when compared with the long history of union organizing. The Trump administration’s new crackdown on unuathorized immigrants also raises new questions. Can a movement devoted to organizing low-wage workers gain momentum when many of its members worry that they or their family members might be deported? "There's a lot of fear," says Margaret Gray, a professor at Adelphi University in Garden City, N.Y., and an expert on food and agricultural movements.
Still, the tomato pickers have notched several successes, which stand in sharp contrast to the wider struggles of organized labor, as union membership in the private sector drops to historic lows and more states adopt antiunion legislation. The CIW works apart from unions. It's one of a growing number of "worker centers" that advocate on behalf of some of the poorest and most vulnerable workers, often immigrants, and often framing labor issues as questions of human rights.
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