Dear Friends,

Five years ago, we were excited to step up as Co-Directors of the Food Chain Workers Alliance, taking the reins from longtime leaders Joann Lo and Jose Oliva. FCWA had just celebrated its tenth anniversary, and it was an opportune moment for a transition to ensure the organization’s long-term health and vitality.

As Co-Directors, we’ve remained committed to FCWA’s founding mission to bring worker voices into the food movement and fight corporate consolidation. We’ve also worked with staff and members to further prioritize member-led, worker-led organizing and economic, racial, and gender justice. From responding to the pandemic to expanding educational programs and creating new spaces for members to collaborate and seed collective work, we’re proud of the work FCWA and our members have accomplished in the past five years.

Today, the Alliance is ready for a new chapter, and it is bittersweet to announce that we will step down from our roles as Co-Directors in early 2025. We know that FCWA will continue to build power for food workers under new leadership, and we are embarking on a process to find that leadership with staff, the board, and a newly-formed transition committee. Stay tuned for updates in the coming months.

In this transitional moment, we hope you’ll support FCWA Member Funds so food workers are ready to spring into action in 2025. This program started as a one-off drive in 2019 to provide direct assistance to poultry workers impacted by ICE workplace raids. As part of our priority to support member organizing, we now have three ongoing funds making grants of $500 – $5,000 to members for Immigration Rapid Response, Language Justice, and Organizing & Capacity Building. Our goal is to raise $10,000 to replenish these funds by December 31, and we’re more than halfway there!

Thank you for supporting the Food Chain Workers Alliance, and most importantly, for supporting workers’ rights across the food chain and beyond.

Suzanne Adely & Sonia Singh
Co-Directors, Food Chain Workers Alliance

In 2012, FCWA launched International Food Workers Week (IFWW) to honor workers across the food chain and solicit public support for workers’ campaigns for better wages, working conditions, and protections.

Food workers are one of the largest working groups in the United States, and they are essential to our economy and general well-being. They are also some of the lowest paid and least protected. Food work is not easy, and often hazardous — read our new report on the 2024 Bi-National People’s Tribunal on the Struggles of Farmworkers in North America to learn more.

So this week, as you shop, cook, and enjoy meals with your loved ones, please keep food workers in mind. Here’s some timely FCWA member actions you can follow and support:

On March 30, 2024, a historic tribunal took place at The People’s Forum in midtown Manhattan. Fourteen current and former farmworkers presented testimony on behalf of themselves and their fellow workers, reporting on conditions they face working in dairies in Vermont and New York; in greenhouses in Ontario, Canada; and on farms in Massachusetts, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Washington. Video messages from workers in Vermont and Jamaica were also shown.

Over the course of sessions focused on Health & Safety, Freedom of Movement, and Climate Justice, worker leaders spoke about life-changing injuries, abysmal housing, sexual assault and harassment, heat exhaustion, social isolation, employer retaliation for organizing, and other everyday realities for agricultural workers.

This tribunal was organized by the Farmworker Committee of the Food Chain Workers Alliance to unite and amplify the voices of farmworkers across North America and beyond. Because our current systems do not function to provide justice for farmworkers, testimonies we heard at the tribunal must be answered by collective organizing at the grassroots level.

Now, our new report on the tribunal is live at farmworkertribunal.org, featuring excerpts from worker testimonies and key findings from the jurors and Farmworker Committee.

Review the report today to learn about issues of housing, sexual violence, workplace injuries, exploitative guest worker programs, extreme temperatures, forced migration, climate disasters and more. The report also lays out our Farmworker Committee’s alternative vision of liberation: a world in which immigrant workers do not live in fear, farmworkers are not robbed of their health and lifespan, farmworker children have access to schools and community, agroecology farms and co-ops abound, our environment is protected, workers unite for fair wages across the food chain, and people work for life and earth, instead of profit for the few.

Go to farmworkertribunal.org to read the report today.
Go to the FCWA YouTube Channel to watch all the recorded testimonies with interpretation in English and Spanish.

Our third Member Organizer Fellowship Program has launched, and this year we’ve expanded it from four to five members to meet growing demand! Representing the meat processing, food manufacturing, and agricultural sectors, each worker leader in this cohort will develop an organizing project over the course of the six-month program, and get together monthly for strategy sharing and peer-to-peer learning. Fellow FCWA members also join these calls, including past fellows Nita (Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights) and Maira (Workers’ Center of Central New York), and guest speakers like Mahoma Lopez (Laundry Workers Center).

Meet our 2024-2025 Member Organizer Fellows:

KIRA (Brandworkers)
Kira was a bread baker and one of the organizing committee members that led the successful union drive at She Wolf Bakery this past spring. The momentum to organize developed out of shared frustration with poor wages, inaccessible health benefits, and inadequate protection from climate hazards like wildfire smoke and extreme heat. The Organizing Committee reached out to Brandworkers early on, and their staff came roaring in with inoculation trainings, allies, company research, legal support, and a grassroots base ready to back them up. After winning the NLRB election, Kira joined Brandworkers staff supporting the She Wolf Worker Union as they transitioned to bargaining. They continue to work closely with the She Wolf Workers Union as an FWCA Fellow, and they are excited to represent Brandworkers on the FWCA Board in the upcoming year!

SOPHIE (Brandworkers)
Sophie is a baker in Brooklyn, NY who would like to see better working conditions across the food production sector in NYC and everywhere.

LELO (Community to Community Development)
Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez Zeferino is a farmworker who has been organizing with Community to Community Development and Familias Unidas por la Justicia for twelve years. He was one of the initial founders of Familias Unidas por la Justicia in Washington State, where he helped agricultural workers get paid for breaks and overtime. His focus is on policy amendment/development and civic engagement.

LENINN (Pioneer Valley Workers Center)
After immigrating from Tlaxcala, Mexico and working for more than a decade in the restaurant industry, Leninn began as a volunteer with PVWC’s mutual aid program in 2020. Growing up, Leninn saw his mother struggle to provide her children with consistent healthy meals. His upbringing, immigration journey, and experience in the restaurant industry have led to a deep, personal understanding of food insecurity and the myriad challenges facing the undocumented immigrant and low-income community in the US. Leninn became a member of PVWC’s staff in the early 2021 and is proud to help to keep the Mutual Aid food distribution program running and growing to serve communities in need in the Pioneer Valley.

FORTINO (Venceremos)
Fortino started to work in the bird industry about 30 years ago, after initially thinking he would only stay for three. He started organizing with Venceremos about four years ago, because has experienced being bullied and he likes to defend people. There was a lot of bullying at his workplace, and he stood up for the workers, including defending some women from sexual harassment. That’s how he met Venceremos founder Magaly Licolli and is now working by her side to learn ways to organize. He thinks of his family when he’s supporting the workers in the workplace as he wouldn’t want my family to be treated like this.

We can’t wait to see what projects these five organizing fellows develop over the course of the cohort!