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THE PACKER September 25, 2009
Foodservice company pledges penny-a-pound increase for Florida tomato pickers
By Tom KarstA foodservice company that serves six million meals daily to schools, universities and other institutions is pledging to increase the wages of Florida tomato pickers — an announcement made with the nation’s top labor official on hand — in the most significant boost to the “penny per pound” campaign that’s been opposed by the groups representing the Florida tomato industry. Representatives of Compass Group North America and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers announced their partnership Sept. 25 in Washington, D.C. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis also attended the press conference on the agreement. Under the agreement, Compass Group North America, a foodservice company based in Charlotte, N.C., will pay an additional 1.5 cents per pound for all the tomatoes it purchases annually, with 1 cent per pound passed from the supplier directly to the field workers. Sarah Hada, spokeswoman for the Compass Group, said the company serves 6 million meals a day. While she did not disclose the volume of the company’s tomato purchases, she said it is safe to assume the firm buys millions of pounds of tomatoes every year. Earlier in September, East Coast Growers and Packers Inc., Mulberry, Fla., entered into a penny-per-pound agreement with Denver-based Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. East Coast is the first major grower to enter into an agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, which has campaigned for years for the program. Batista Madonia Jr., vice president and sales manager for East Coast Growers, said Sept. 24 he could not say if others would follow the East Coast lead. “I can say we are happy to be doing what we’re doing,” he said. However, the agreement drew criticism Sept. 24 from Reggie Brown, manager of the Florida Tomato Committee and executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Exchange. While he had not seen details of the agreement before the formal Sept. 25 announcement, Brown said Florida growers will be punished by competitive suppliers if they agree to higher wages. “It going to be really hard for any industry to compete in the globally commoditized marketplace when they are entering into agreements to make them the high-cost suppler,” Brown said. “The reality is that the sourcing of tomatoes is a North America-wide phenomenon, and to be raising the cost of Florida grown product in the face of competition and Mexico and throughout the rest of the United States — it is not a very sound business model.” Lucas Benitez, spokesman for the CIW, said in a news release that the agreement represents the “future of Florida agriculture.” Compass Group pledges to purchase only tomatoes from growers and suppliers willing to meet the standards set out in a code of conduct and pass the raise on to their workers. “East Coast packers will fulfill our needs until other suppliers sign on to the code of conduct,” Hada said. According to a news release from Compass Group and CIW, the code of conduct ensures:
Brown said CIW has been attempting to unionize Florida tomato growers by using a backdoor strategy of boycotting third-party companies to apply pressure. In fact, he said there is a current case in court seeking to determine if CIW has violated state laws by negotiating wages without declaring itself a union. “Basically when anyone enters into legal negotiations with CIW, based on legal opinions that I’ve seen, they become unionized by CIW, and CIW to my knowledge doesn’t represent any of the workforces of the folks that are in the business,” he said. Brown said other sectors of the produce industry could someday be vulnerable to the CIW efforts. “This is not just my problem,” he said. “This is a problem that knows no bounds.”
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