On our last day of our Food Workers Rising days of action, we are sharing a call for solidarity with migrant farmworkers standing up for fairness and respect.

Martin’s Family Fruit Farm employs migrant farmworkers at their Ontario, Canada apple farm. In October, a COVID-19 outbreak struck Martin’s Family Fruit Farm. Dozens of workers contracted the virus.

As a result, workers engaged in a work refusal and ceased work until they had confirmation whether or not they were COVID positive. Rather than respect the health and well-being of the workers, the employer is alleged to have threatened the workers with disbarment from the program if they continued their acts of resistance.

Please join Justicia for Migrant Workers in demanding fairness and respect for the workers who put food on our table. We are asking Martin’s Family Fruit Farm to commit to no reprisals against its workforce and to implement immediate steps to provide strong health and safety protections and adequate housing accommodations to prevent further outbreaks.

Martin’s Family Fruit Farm Apple Chips are sold at Starbucks stores. Today, supporters will be organizing solidarity actions at over 19 Starbucks stores in Canada and the US.

Please join us in sending a message to Starbucks asking them to support farmworkers’ rights to work in an environment that is free from harassment and that is safe and dignified and to call on Martin’s Family Fruit Farm to commit to the above steps.

TAKE ACTION

• TAKE A PHOTO OUTSIDE STARBUCKS TODAY. Hold up a sign with your solidarity message and post on social media using #Justice4AppleWorkers. Sample messages include: Starbucks, support farmworkers in your supply chain; #Justice4AppleWorkers; Stand up for farmworkers rights

• CLICK HERE TO SEND A TWEET AMPLIFYING WORKERS DEMANDS

Thank you so much for your solidarity with food workers today and during the entire week of action!

Thousands of Central American farmworkers have been left in a state of emergency due to the flooding and devastation from Hurricane Eta.

Banana and Palm Oil plantation workers in Honduras and Guatemala have lost everything, including hundreds who spent days atop roofs waiting to be rescued while their homes and communities flooded.

Global Labor Justice – International Labor Rights Forum (GLJ-ILRF) has been supporting union members from El Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Agroindustria y Similares and Izabal Banana Workers’ Union— unions that have played a critical role in defending labor rights and building worker power in the fields for nearly a decade. As they rebuild their own lives, these union organizers are supporting recovery efforts for workers and their families in Honduras and Guatemala.

TAKE ACTION

Stand with Central American workers by joining with GLJ-ILRF to help provide basic supplies and relief.

100% of your donation will go directly to Hondurans and Guatemalans affected by Hurricane Eta to help them with their basic needs, including purchasing food, stoves, mattresses, clothing, and home repairs.

Eight months into the COVID-19 pandemic and there are still no mandatory federal health and safety federal standards for workers. The second wave is here and workers are still inadequately protected from COVID-19. This means food workers continue to be at risk of contracting and spreading COVID-19 at work and bringing the virus home to their communities. We know that every day counts in keeping people safe and healthy. That is why we are urging the new York State legislature to pass the NY HERO Act as soon as possible to stop the second wave of COVID-19.

The NY HERO Act is legislation that provides mandatory safety protocols and regulations to protect workers in every industry and gives workers a stronger voice in the workplace to fight this pandemic.

We join FCWA members and a statewide coalition of unions, worker centers, community organizations, and faith groups in calling on the State Legislature to pass the NY HERO Act and make New York a national model in protecting workers and communities during this ongoing crisis.

TAKE ACTION

• Sign the petition urging state leaders to protect workers from the second wave of Covid-19
• Share an animated short film on working during Covid-19, and the need for the NY HERO Act to protect our communities

In January 2020, FCWA members in New York State won an important victory with the passage of the Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act, affording NY farmworkers long overdue labor protections such as paid overtime. But the fight for farm worker protections continues. The new law stipulates that farmworkers in New York must work 60 hours a week before they receive overtime pay. The NYS Department of Labor is currently holding hearings to consider if that overtime threshold should be lowered.

Farm owners are organizing to keep the 60 hour overtime threshold and make sure farmworkers can continue to be legally exploited by not receiving overtime pay after a long work week.  But farmworkers are also speaking out, sharing their stories today on why farmworkers deserve equal pay for equal hours!

We stand with farmworkers, advocates, and allies to say that a 60-hour work week is too long for farmworkers to receive overtime pay, and that the law should be overtime pay after a 40-hour work week like in many other industries.

TAKE ACTION

Like many other food chain workers, farmworkers will work extra hours this holiday season to make sure we get food on our tables.Show solidarity with NY farmworkers by amplifying their stories and demands for equal pay on social media.

Click here to send a tweet demanding equal pay for equal hours:

Sample tweet:

Farmworkers will work extra hours to make sure we all have food during the holidays, even during a global pandemic! We call on @NYSLabor & @NYGovCuomo to lower the overtime threshold for farmworkers! #EqualPay4EqualHours! #ProtectNYFarmworkers

There are 20,000 street vendors in NYC. Vendors who are primarily immigrants, people of color, and women, keep their city running. But a racist, outdated cap on permits required to run a food cart forces thousands to either work in fear of police harassment without one, or rent a permit in the underground market for up to $25,000. This broken system has gone on for far too long.

On November 12th street vendors from throughout NYC held a historic march across the Brooklyn Bridge demanding:

• NYC council lift the cap on street vendor permits which hasn’t been updated in decades.
• NYC Council pass a resolution to end police harassment of street vendors 
• Financial relief for street vendors who have been financially harmed by COVID19.

Read more about NYC’s street vendors in this powerful NYT expose. 

TAKE ACTION:

Tweet your Support for NYC Street Vendors Today 

Here are some sample tweets:

Demand an end to the racist, outdated vending system that criminalizes NYC street vendors. @NYCMayor @NYCCouncil pass #intro1116 NOW!

Photo 1: Manuel. 

 You read Manuel’s powerful story of surviving by street vending in the @nytimes piece by @arrejuan & @dgbxny

 He’s asking you, @NYCCouncil @NYCMayor, to respect our work. Respect the work of NYC’s street vendors.

Pass #Intro1116 Now!

Photo 2: Yu Xia

“Even after all these yrs, I still don’t have my own permit. I spend $20,000 every 2 yrs to rent someone else’s

 Normally, this is a huge burden. Now during the pandemic, it’s made my situation even more difficult” – Yu Xia, Flushing vendor

 @NYCMayor @NYCCouncil Pass #Intro1116!

Cover photo: Salvador Espinoza 

Today as we launch Food Workers Rising, we are uplifting grocery workers fighting for hazard pay at the grocery chain Food 4 Less.

As COVID-19 cases spike and employees brace for holiday crowds, Food 4 Less workers in Los Angeles rallied Tuesday to demand reinstatement of Hazard Pay and increased safety protections for workers and customers. Despite a huge increase in sales, Kroger, Food 4 Less’ parent company, eliminated hazard pay and has failed to enforce basic workplace protections to keep workers and customers safe.

Workers are concerned that the holiday season and increased COVID infections will put them, their families, and customers at greater risk. Yesterday, Food4Less workers launched their #Fight4More / #Lucha4Más campaign with UFCW Local 770.

Watch Food 4 Less workers deliver a petition to management here and stay tuned for upcoming calls to action to support Local 770 members in their call for hazard pay.

Find out more about the #Fight4More / #Lucha4Más campaign here.

RSVP HERE

Upcoming Expungement & Know Your Rights Workshops

As part of our ongoing know your rights and worker outreach efforts, WWJ will be hosting 2 expungement and know your rights workshops in February. Our first workshop with the Raise the Floor legal clinic is Tuesday, February 25th, 11am at our Chicago office at 37 S Ashland. To rsvp for this workshop or if you have any questions email bobby@warehouseworker.org

Our second workshop will be Thursday, February 27th, 6pm at our new Joliet office at 114 E. Jefferson Street, Suite B (street parking is free after 5pm). RSVP with alicia@warehouseworker.org We highly encourage attendees to get their rap sheets beforehand and our staff can direct those interested in attending on where to obtain this info.

Clean Energy Jobs Act Lobby Day March 4th

As part of our follow up to our People’s Climate Movement event in Elwood, Illinois in 2018, WWJ became a member of the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition and has been a supporter of the Clean Energy Jobs Act (CEJA). Within the last couple of weeks Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signaled support for a version of CEJA. While this is a welcome and encouraging development, it’s critical that we follow up with our elected officials in order to pass the strongest bill possible. For all our friends in Will County we want to invite you to join us for a lobby day on March 4th. We will be meeting up at 7am at a location tba. To RSVP or for more info email roberto@warehouseworker.org

Early Warning: Earth Day to May Day

Last year as part of our work with the Athena Coalition, WWJ fought for both labor and environmental justice from Amazon. In this spirit, WWJ is helping to spearhead local Earth Day to May Day organizing efforts that will link labor, community, student and climate justice efforts. Last week we had our first earth to may day coalition meeting in Chicago with 40+ people attending. There is a lot of enthusiasm to link these efforts and to support the unprecedented youth climate strikes. Our next meeting will be Wednesday, February 19th, 6pm at a location tba. For our friends in Will County, we have set a county-wide Earth Day event for Saturday, April 25th, noon at St. Francis University. For more info on either of these efforts email roberto@warehouseworker.org

Today, on Black Friday, we want to acknowledge and support the retail and warehouse workers who are working long hours today and every day, and who are organizing for respect, healthy conditions and racial justice.

We are inspired by the workers who are taking on corporate giants like Amazon and Walmart, and who have courageously organized walk outs over their working conditions at Amazon warehouses, and Walmart stores, or are fighting racial discrimination at Walmart’s biggest warehouse.

TAKE ACTION 

• Watch Dear Walmart, a new documentary that tells the intimate and behind-the-headlines stories of Walmart workers who have joined United for Respect.

• Follow Warehouse Workers for Justice, who are organizing with warehouse workers in Joliet, IL. WWJ will have actions to announce soon in their campaign to get Walmart to hire back Black warehouse workers at it’s largest North American Warehouse.

On Day 9 of Food Workers Rising, we invite you to join Florida farmworkers calling on their lawmakers to pass common sense heat stress protections for outdoor workers. 

When farmworkers cannot stop to drink water, they risk severe, even debilitating, dehydration. When they cannot rest or find shade, they may experience heat stress, heat stroke, and even death, and excessive heat exposure can lead to chronic dehydration and long-term kidney failure. Rising temperatures are projected to cause an increase in heat-related workplace injuries and illness. Simple solutions like access to water, shade, and breaks throughout the workday can be life-saving measures for outdoor workers.​

No one should have to risk their health – and even their life – working to feed our communities.

Join Farmworker Association of Florida and farmworkers across the state in calling on lawmakers to pass common sense heat stress protections for workers whose health is at risk from working in high heat environments. 

Show your support today by signing this petition. 

On Day 8 of #FoodWorkersRising we are asking FCWA supporters to take action to defend the rights of people of color and immigrants who ride Greyhound buses. 

Several FCWA members have joined a nation-wide campaign to demand that @GreyhoundBus end their cooperation with Immigration agents who board buses to racially profile and target people of color. 

Every day in cities from coast to coast, ICE, the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Patrol agents freely board buses with Greyhound’s permission and attempt to identify and detain migrants. While Greyhound is not required to allow these agents onto its buses, the company has done so voluntarily. Greyhound’s actions leave their rider vulnerable to being racially targeted, criminalized and abused by immigration enforcement when they should feel safe. 

Migrant Justice is a central principle of FCWA’s organizing and advocacy work. In fact, it is food workers who have been disproportionately targeted by the recent, abusive wave of immigration enforcement. The Greyhound campaign is one way in which FCWA members are fighting back.

TAKE ACTION 

TWEET Greyhound today, one of the busiest bus travel days of the year! 

@GreyhoundBus – End Cooperation with Immigration Enforcement now. 

@GreyhoundBus – NO Border Patrol; NO I.C.E.

​

Sign ACLU Petition 

BUSES ARE NO PLACE FOR BORDER PATROL

TRAVELING BY @GreyhoundBus 

Know your Passenger Rights 

On Day 7 of Food Workers Rising we are asking you to stand in solidarity with UNITE HERE members and airline catering workers who will be protesting at over 15 airports across the U.S.today.

While American Airlines pulls in billions in profits, airline catering workers who provide food and beverages served aboard American flights face poverty wages and unaffordable health insurance. Catering workers shouldn’t have to choose between paying their bills or getting medical treatment.

TAKE ACTION

Tell American Airlines One Job Should Be Enough!

1. Share this graphic on Twitter 
2. Sign and share a petition at www.onejob.org/thx  
3. Join an action in one of 15 cities today! Find action info here

Sample messages:

We stand in solidarity with the airline catering workers in 15 cities protesting at airports today calling on @AmericanAir to fix the labor dispute ASAP! Because #1job should be enough––and airline food workers won’t quit until it is.

Airline catering workers shouldn’t have to choose between paying their bills or getting medical treatment. Tell @AmericanAir: One Job Should Be Enough! Sign here: www.onejob.org/thx  | #1job | #1u ​​

Today Food Chain Workers Alliance is launching our FOOD WORKERS ORGANIZING. Developed by FCWA members, the platform is a tool to guide our collective organizing over the next decade! 

Show your support for the  #FoodWorkersOrganzing platform this week through social media and across your networks and join in the fight for worker power! Our social media kit has graphics to share like the one below.

Sample tweet:

I support #FoodWorkersOrganizing for Migrant Justice! Share & Support or new #FoodWorkersOrganizing platform with a retweet. 

www.foodworkersorganize.org

On Day 5 of Food Worker Rising, we are lifting up the voices of migrant workers gathered tonight at a solidarity dinner in Leamington Ontario, Canada. At this powerful community gathering workers are sharing their hopes and demands for change in Canada’s guestworker programs

The Seasonal Agricultural Workers program is a guest worker program that has brought thousands of Caribbean and Mexican migrant farm workers to toil in fields across Canada and put food on our tables.

Migrant workers under this program are tied to their employer, have no access to residency status and must return home after their contract.

Over the past fifty-three years countless workers have described the conditions under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers program as inhumane and unjust. From being sent home for standing up for their rights at work to being denied equal access to our healthcare system, migrant workers face differential treatment than residents of Canada.

TAKE ACTION

1. Sign a petition calling on Canada’s new immigration minister to listen to the voices of migrant workers and ensure workers have residency status and fair and safe working conditions now.
2. Share @j4mw’s posts with photos of workers dreams for status, safe working conditions, the right to organize and more, calling on @marcomendicino to take immediate action.

Sample tweets:

@marcomendicino Listen to the voices of the migrant farmworkers who grow the food we eat. All migrant workers need residency status and fair and safe working conditions now.

@marcomendicino it’s time for fairness and justice for migrant workers #statusnow 

@marcomendicino good things grow in sweatshops all across Ontario! It’s time to end sweatshop labour and provide dignity for the hands that feeds us #statusnow 

On Day 4 of Food Worker Rising, we’re asking you to support Honduran melon workers and their fight for an independent union. 

With the support from FCWA member International Labor Rights Forum, Honduran melon workers have been organizing to exposing the truth about dangerous working conditions on melon plantations despite ongoing death threats. These plantations are owned by Fyffes who, in response, are threatening to take jobs away and refuses to recognize their independent worker union. 

TAKE ACTION

You can stand in solidarity with these Honduran workers by sharing the message below on your social media:

@International Labor Rights Forum has been supporting Honduran melon workers in exposing the truth about dangerous working conditions on melon plantations while their employer @FyffesNA threatens to take jobs away and refuses to recognize their worker union. @FyffesNA needs to stay in Honduras and recognize the workers’ independent union! 

#FyffesFails #FoodWorkersRising

On Day 3 of Food Workers Rising we are asking you to support Street Vendors who are too often criminalized in our cities. Join the fight to #LifttheCaps for Street Vendors

On November 8th, a NYC churro vendor named Elsa was detained, handcuffed, verbally abused, and ticketed by several police officers.The police also confiscated her cart and materials. The same week a second churro vendor was treated in the same manner at another Brooklyn station. Only days later a video surfaced of several police officers brutalizing a young Black man at a Harlem station for selling candy.

These incidents are not isolated. Vendors across NYC are criminalized for vending without a permit, while at the same time denied an avenue to receive one. NYC-based FCWA member, the Street Vendor Project has been leading a campaign to #LifttheCaps on street vendor permits and legalize the work of thousands of immigrant food vendors across NYC and have even taken that fight to the state level.

TAKE ACTION

1. The Street Vendor Project has set up a fund to support the street vendors who have been affected by this escalation in policing. You can donate to that fund here.
2. Join the fight to #LifttheCaps for Street Vendors: Talk to your local elected official and express your support for street vendors and the importance of legalizing their work and lifting the caps on permits.

On Day Two of Food Workers Rising, we are asking you to support dairy workers in Vermont and write an email to Hannaford CEO.

Dairy workers are making critical improvements to labor and housing conditions through an innovative program called Milk with Dignity. FCWA member Migrant Justice created the Milk with Dignity Program in support of dairy workers having a voice at work, despite systemic low wages and dangerous working conditions in their industry.

Two years after the successful launch of the program in the supply chain of ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s, dairy workers are seeking to expand Milk with Dignity by calling on Hannaford supermarkets to protect the rights and well-being of the workers behind the company’s store-brand milk.

Hannaford is one of the largest supermarket chains in the Northeast and an important buyer of dairy products in the region. Please join us in calling on Hannaford to sign on to the Milk with Dignity Program! 

TAKE ACTION

Sign on to an email to Hannaford CEO here: 

After you send an email, take a solidarity photo and share on social media:

Make your support for Milk with Dignity public!  On a piece of paper, write a quick message using the format “I support Milk with Dignity because…” then take a picture of yourself holding the paper.  

Post on your social accounts, tagging Hannaford (facebook and twitter @Hannaford, instagram: @Hannafordmkts) and captioning the photo urging Hannaford to join the #MilkWithDignity program

Please help share this action on social media and stay tuned for Day 3 of Food Workers Rising! 

On Day One of Food Workers Rising, we are asking you to support 350 striking food workers in Princeville Quebec!

Meatpacking workers at Olymel have been on strike since October 29. The Quebec-based company is the largest hog producer in Canada. Workers at the Princeville Olymel plant took a $5.40 paycut in 2005 to help the company keep it’s plant doors open. But workers have not seen a fair share of Olymel’s record profits since then and are calling for a fair raise. 

TAKE ACTION

Meat processing is one of the most difficult and dangerous jobs in the food industry. Can you support the 350 Olymel striking workers by making a call to Olymel CEO today? 

Call Olymel’s head office at: 1 800 361-7990 EXT 3123

Or send a message to the company here: 

Sample message:

“I am calling to support the striking Olymel workers in Princeville. They work hard to make Olymel profitable and deserve a fair wage.”

The 350 striking workers are members of the Federation of Commerce (FC-CSN), one of our newest FCWA members. Federation of Commerce represents 28,000 workers including those employed at grocery stores, warehouses, meatpacking and food processing across the province of Quebec.

Help us get the word on social media to support striking Olymel workers and stay tuned for Day 2 of Food Workers Rising!