The Dressember Network: Preventing Exploitation in Agricultural Work
As we approach Thanksgiving, we picture bountiful harvests: the table laden with pumpkin and apple pies, potato casseroles (sweet and savory alike), green beans, and a cornucopia with all of the seasonal delights we can imagine. What we often don’t consider is how that food comes to us, or who is producing it. We are just happy it is on the table.
But the reality is that in the United States, the jobs that impact each of us the most on a day-to-day basis, those occupied by farmworkers, are typically done for a painfully low wage. These jobs are occupied by farmworkers, who often experience generational poverty within the agricultural industry.
Not only are the wages low, but the people doing these jobs are also faced with particularly daunting circumstances.
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
The statistics are staggering.
Per a recent California survey, 80% of female farmworkers have been sexually harassed or assaulted. 100 U.S. farmworkers suffer a serious injury at work every day. 183 farmworkers died of work-related injuries in 2019. Farmworkers are 20x more likely to die of heat-stress-related illnesses than workers overall. Finally, 94% of labor trafficking victims on H2-A visas have experienced fraud as part of their recruitment or work. 99% have experienced coercion.
Many workers are faced with the knowledge that they may experience physical abuse, sexual violence, or trafficking while completing the backbreaking labor necessary to feed the country.
Dressember is committed to protecting agricultural workers.
Photo by Delightin Dee on Unsplash
That is where the Dressember Network’s efforts to protect agricultural workers come in.
The Fair Food Program: For Farmworkers, By Farmworkers
The Fair Food Program (FFP) was founded by farmworkers to protect the industry’s most vulnerable members. This aspect is key because, as we know, no one is better equipped to understand and assert the needs of a vulnerable population than its own members. Workers continue to have the opportunity to evaluate updates to the Fair Food Code of Conduct, thereby ensuring that it remains relevant to workers’ realities and needs.
The design of the program uses the high degree of consolidation in the food industry to allow workers to improve incomes and labor conditions in the fields. Essentially, the program asks that companies at the top of the agricultural supply chain use their market power to effect change in the following ways: paying a premium (one penny per pound) for produce, to be passed to workers as a bonus in their regular paychecks, and agreeing to purchase only from growers that have implemented a Human Rights Code of Conduct. Growers who participate are encouraged to police their own operations with zero tolerance for forced labor. The worker-to-worker education program at the FFP’s core empowers workers to look for signs of human trafficking and speak up when they see signs. The Program’s direct hire requirements also eliminate one source of power imbalance by ensuring that workers will directly receive compensation.
14 major food buyers, including McDonald’s, Subway, Whole Foods, and Walmart, have joined the Program since its early 2000s inception. The Program’s massive success in providing farmworkers with unprecedented human rights shows that when we address the power imbalances that lie at the root of human trafficking, we can see real results.
As advocates, we can get involved first and foremost by educating ourselves and others on the realities of one of the largest and most important industries in the United States. We can also wield the power of the purse. We have a very real opportunity to protect agricultural workers from poor working conditions by intentionally and thoughtfully considering where our produce comes from - before it’s on the table for Thanksgiving dinner. A full list of the food buyers involved in the FFP can be found here. With intentional purchasing decisions and widespread education, we can cut the power imbalances associated with agricultural labor at the source and further the fight for a world without human trafficking.
The Dressember Network is made up of 20 organizations that support programs in the following impact areas: advocacy, prevention, intervention, and survivor empowerment. Through a new partnership with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ (CIW) Fair Food Program, local leaders provide education and legal services to prevent human trafficking, sexual assault, sexual wage theft, and other human rights abuses. CIW is a human rights organization founded by farmworkers in southwest Florida on the belief that we can be stronger together when we unite around a common goal of a more just and humane agricultural industry. Initially, the organization worked to address the abusive conditions and stagnant wages of farmworkers. It was through those efforts that the organization began to recognize human trafficking situations, and was able to free 1500 farmworkers. However, CIW began to realize that stopping individual trafficking operations could not end exploitation because the imbalance of power between farmworkers and their employers would still exist. It was this realization that led to the conception of the Fair Food Program.
When you support Dressember, you help dismantle trafficking holistically and in a way that prioritizes survivor needs and voices. Ready to join us? Register to become an advocate or make a donation today.
About the Author
Miranda Cecil is a second-year at Northeastern University School of Law. She graduated from the University of North Carolina in 2020 (go heels!) and shipped up to Boston. As a North Carolina transplant in New England, she loves exploring her new area on the weekends. In her free time, she enjoys cross-stitching, cycling, and reading. She hopes to use her legal degree and a passion for urban development to continue advocating for human trafficking survivors (and, despite the Boston winter, looks forward to the style challenge this December).