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Article

23 Jan 2014

Author:
Kerry Kennedy, president of RFK Center for Justice & Human Rights, letter to editor of New York Times

Dignity for Farmworkers [USA]

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The tactics of the business-backed Worker Center Watch and its ilk seem more desperate than ever. This month, Walmart joined the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Fair Food Program to advance farmworker rights...[The] people who harvest our food are paid poverty wages without overtime in an industry where a 95-hour workweek is considered standard. I’ve met men who worked 10 years without a day off, women who were sexually assaulted in the fields, and children as young as 14 who earn $3.20 an hour for backbreaking labor...[Let] us call on Publix supermarkets and the remaining holdouts to take this simple pledge: A penny more per pound to bring dignity to our farms.

Part of the following timelines

USA: Walmart joins Fair Food Program fighting sexual harassment in farms through code of conduct & external audits

USA: Fair Food Coalition urges Ahold, Publix, Wendy's & others to sign pact on tomato farm workers' rights