Farmworker organizing in New York – Finding a recipe for systemic change.

Farm work is labor intensive and has severe impacts on the body. Farmworkers perform repetitive picking motions, bend over for hours at a time, lift heavy buckets of produce, and operate machinery like tractors, pesticide applicators, and fruit pickers that can lead to mishaps and injuries on the job[1]. Sexual harassment and forced labor have also been pervasive in agriculture. One study found that 80% of female farmworkers has experienced sexual harassment[2], and numerous forced labor cases have been uncovered and prosecuted throughout the United States[3].

Changing the abusive practices that have become endemic in the industry will require systemic change. One of the most effective ways to redress these deplorable conditions is using legally-binding, enforceable frameworks that allow workers to raise and resolve workplace abuses without the fear of retaliation. Agricultural and domestic workers are excluded from federal labor protections in the National Labor Relations Act; which is understood to be rooted in racism[4]. Even with these codified legal exclusions, however, farmworkers have been able to organize and win collective victories that guarantee their access to human and labor rights.

In a world in which purchasing power continues to consolidate at the very top by large corporations, and global value chains, multiple sourcing, and labor contractors obscure responsibilities, workers have adopted several approaches to find winnable solutions. Using a labor-relations lens, I analyze two cases of farmworker organizing that have resulted in workers gaining access to enforceable rights in the U.S. I then discuss current challenges the industry is experiencing. These challenges are created in large part by top-down certification programs that provide corporations with a label that absolves them of responsibilities and offers consumers a feel good sticker alternative, while depriving workers of the necessary systems to improve their work conditions. These initiatives present a new set of challenges to workers who seek structural change needed to abrogate egregious human rights violations in the workplace.

Case Study: Understanding the agricultural landscape in New York

In 2017, the Workers’ Center of Central New York and the Worker Justice Center of New York published, “Milked: Immigrant Dairy Workers in New York State.” In this report, authors Carly Fox, Rebecca Fuentes, Fabiola Ortiz Valdez, Gretchen Purser, and Kathleen Sexsmith, concisely summarize the issues affecting farmworkers and dairy workers in New York. “Producing milk is a fully modern business, unrecognizable in comparison to the dairying of even a few decades ago. Today’s dairy farmers strive for growth, consolidation, efficiency, and automation to stay competitive in a globalized sector increasingly controlled by multinational corporations. Yet, as the technology and science revolutionizing the dairy industry accelerate at a breakneck pace, a race to the bottom is occurring in the treatment and working conditions of the immigrant laborers who toil in milking parlors and barns.” The authors expand on the changing industry: “Changes in the milk production process and the consolidation of dairy farming created significant new demand for immigrant labor on New York dairy farms in the early 1990s. Farms consolidated and became fewer, larger, and more efficient. In response, farmers turned to Latino immigrants to fill positions in their 24-hour milking parlors as milking work became semi-automated, fast-paced, stressful, and exhausting. Dairy farmworkers in the state are almost all undocumented and live in tremendous fear of detention by police or border patrol agents in the heavily patrolled border region between the U.S. and Canada.”

The report authors’ concise description of current trends in the agricultural industry buttressed the organizing work that was taking place in New York.

Dairy Workers in New York

In 2016, farmworker Crispin Hernandez, the Workers’ Center of Central New York (WCCNY), and the Worker Justice Center of New York sued New York, arguing that farmworker exclusion for the right to organize and collectively bargain violates the state’s Constitution[5]. On May 23, 2019, the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court released a 4-1 decision in favor of Hernandez, ruling that excluding agricultural workers from collective bargaining protections was unconstitutional[6]. This legal struggle became the catalyst for the passage and signage of the Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act (FFLPA) in 2019. The legislative victory was celebrated by workers in New York and the U.S. and signified a step in the right direction to undo the historical and racist exclusion of farmworkers from organizing. It also recognized that reform was necessary for workers to have a voice in the workplace.

The law provides workers with basic protections: farm workers can unionize but are not able to strike or engage in a lockout. Overtime begins after sixty hours, and workers are to be paid time and a half if they elect to work the extra day. The bill requires employer neutrality (meaning bosses cannot engage in anti-union activity) and card check recognition (employers must recognize unions if a majority of workers sign a card) [7].

The FFLPA is the product of a two-decades-long organizing effort spearheaded by the Justice for Farmworkers Campaign (JFC). Tying together labor groups like the WCCNY, religious associations, and students, the campaign worked to educate consumers and lobby legislators. Their efforts kept the bill alive year after year[8]. The JFC website lists over ninety member organizations, including labor unions, human rights and labor organizations, and student and religious organizations[9]. Some of the main actors that were involved in the constitutional efforts were the Rural Migrant Ministry, the Workers’ Center of Central New York, the Workers’ Justice Center of Central New York, and Alianza Agricola.

Although the FFLPA came into effect in 2020, the global pandemic slowed down and complicated organizing efforts in New York. In spite of these challenges, worker-led organizations have continued to play the pivotal role of informing community members about their rights under the FFLPA.

Dairy Workers in Vermont (and New York)

One state over in Vermont, Migrant Justice organizers were trying to find ways to address the egregious working conditions that were also prevalent in the state’s dairy industry. After years of “putting out fires” in defense of Vermont dairy worker rights on a farm by farm basis, Vermont farmworker members of Migrant Justice decided it was time for a systemic solution with the capacity to drive industry-wide change. In 2014, Vermont dairy workers conducted an in-depth survey to document the top workplace and housing issues in the industry. Workers then converted these worker rights and housing violations into solutions through the creation of the Milk with Dignity Code of Conduct—defining the human rights essential to a dignified workplace and fair housing[10].

Additionally, Migrant Justice farmworker leaders initiated an ongoing dialogue with Florida farmworkers beginning in August of 2014 to learn about their successful experiences with the Campaign for Fair Food. Through this process, Vermont workers learned that they were in need of much more than standards or a Code without enforcement, which is the prevailing public relations based approach found in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Therefore, workers began a process to adapt the core concepts of their Fair Food Program to the VT dairy context, resulting in a deep dive into the power of the Worker-Driven Social Responsibility (WSR) model. [11].

The Worker-Driven Social Responsibility Network website explains that, in order to ensure meaningful and lasting improvements, human rights protections in corporate supply chains must include the following elements[12]:

Workers must be involved in the creation, monitoring, and enforcement of programs designed to improve wages and conditions;
Companies must sign legally binding commitments with worker organizations, and those agreements must require the brands to provide financial support to their suppliers to help meet the labor standards established by the program, and to stop doing business with suppliers who violate those standards; and
Monitoring and enforcement mechanisms must be designed to provide workers an effective voice in the protection of their own rights, including extensive worker education on their rights under the program, rigorous workplace inspections that are effectively independent of brand and retailer influence, public disclosure of the names and locations of participating brands and suppliers, and a complaint mechanism that ensures swift and effective action when workers identify abuses.

In October 2017, after years of negotiations and campaigning, Migrant Justice and Ben & Jerry’s signed an historic agreement making Ben & Jerry’s the first major dairy corporation to join the MWD Program and require its supplier farms to come into compliance with the MD Code of Conduct[13]. As basic tenets, the program includes worker-authored labor standards; worker-to-worker education; independent monitoring; complaint resolution and market access consequences; economic relief in the form of a premium paid by corporations to suppliers and workers; and legally-binding agreements governing buyers’ commitments. The agreement currently includes 262 qualifying workers on 64 participating farms across Vermont and New York[14].

Migrant Justice continues to campaign to bring additional corporations to join the Milk with Dignity Program. One of its current campaigns seeks to bring Hannaford (Hannaford Brothers Company) into the MWD Program.

Certification Schemes Without Real Worker Protections

Corporations have been turning to third-party certification schemes to provide a seal of approval, in an effort to signal to consumers that they “care” for workers in their supply chain. However, third-party certification schemes are no substitute for real worker representation through collective bargaining agreements or legally binding agreements with corporations at the top of the supply chain. There are numerous examples of how third-party schemes have failed workers. Fair World Project has written at length about the dangers of certification program that offer no concrete solutions to workers: “Fair World Project has long decried the ways that Fair Trade USA has co-opted the language and goodwill of a movement and a message developed by small-scale farmers and their coffee cooperatives. It is particularly egregious in the case of Fair Trade dairy. Fair Trade USA’s messaging borrows the feel-good cooperative messaging to market a program driven by the corporate players at the top of the U.S. dairy industry with no democratic involvement from the most impacted people. That’s highly relevant here as one of the root causes for the declining prices for farmers and conditions for workers is ultimately the crushing corporate consolidation in the dairy industry. To provide cover for massive players in the industry while co-opting the messaging of small-scale farmers is to add insult to the injuries piled up by weak, unenforceable standards”[15].

In 2019, Fair Trade USA (FTUSA) announced the creation of dairy-specific initiative. FTUSA’s partnership with Chobani to adopt their dairy program threatens to deprive workers of meaningful change.

Power Analysis

STRUCTURAL POWER

Justice for Farmworkers Campaign

Farmworkers lacked access to structural power. They are excluded from the federal labor organizing protections, and in the state of New York, workers were excluded from collective bargaining protections. For at least two decades there were attempts to reverse that exclusion, which finally happened in 2019. This meant that workers had little access to power in the workplace, and strikes would not have been as efficient as they could have been easily replaced by the employers.

Migrant Justice

Farmworkers in Vermont do not have access to collective bargaining rights. Thus, workers’ ability to effectively strike was nonexistent. Furthermore, without meaningful legal protections, workers could be replaced by employers with ease for advocating for workplace rights.

INSTITUIONAL POWER

Justice for Farmworkers Campaign

Given the exclusion from legal collective bargaining protections, workers had very little access to institutional power. Organizations that represented workers in legal claims like the Worker Justice Center of New York and legal aid organizations represented workers in legal matters against employers. However, even with access to legal representation, many barriers like documentation, isolation, and economic realities prevented workers from accessing legal representation.

The campaign waged by the Justice for Farmworkers Campaign sought and was able to change this reality.

Migrant Justice

Workers also lacked access to institutional power. Nevertheless, Migrant Justice organizers were able to win a few concrete institutional victories. For example, in 2013, Migrant Justice won tens of thousands of dollars in back wages through our Workers’ Rights Hotline and working with the VT Department of Labor to change labor law in 2013 to expand state powers to collect unpaid wages[16].

ASSOCIATIONAL POWER

Justice for Farmworkers Campaign

While the Justice for Farmworkers Campaign was a multi-organizational effort, worker-centered organizations were constantly involved and played a central organizing role. Through the Workers’ Center of Central New York, The Worker Justice Center, and other organizations that work directly with the community, worker leaders were active and participated in the campaign for legislative reform.

Worker involvement was important, as many organizations developed farmworker leaders who were heavily involved in the Justice for Farmworkers Campaign. Worker leaders helped produce the survey and conduct interviews used in for the Milked report in 2017.

Migrant Justice

Building worker leadership is a cornerstone of Migrant Justice’s organizing ethos. Migrant Justice meets with the farmworker community to analyze “shared problems and to envision collective solutions.” Through this ongoing investment in leadership development, members deepen their skills in community education and organizing for long-term systemic change[17].

Migrant Justice also conducted a survey with the dairy worker community to identify some of the key issues affecting workers. Following worker-to-worker exchanges with leaders from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Migrant Justice designed their Milk with Dignity Program to systematically address the deplorable working conditions identified by workers.

SOCIETAL POWER

Justice for Farmworkers Campaign

The Justice for Farmworkers Campaign relied heavily on creating societal power. As stated earlier, the Campaign involved over ninety member organizations that included labor and human rights organizations, not-for-profits, student organizations, faith leaders, and civil society at large. By building alliances across various sectors, farmworkers enlisted support from the community in their struggle to gain legislative recognition of their collective bargaining rights.

Worker and community organizations worked to educate the public and elevate the issue of farmworker rights. Worker organizers were able to rely on those relationship, and the farmworker leaders in the community gained allies that would prove to be pivotal in the fight for legislative change. The alliances that were created were also effective in passing other legislative changes, including a bill that grants access to driver licenses to the undocumented community in New York[18].

Migrant Justice

Migrant Justice organizers also relied on building Societal Power, which was pivotal to ensuring Ben and Jerry’s participation in the Milk With Dignity Program. Migrant Justice organizations formed coalitions with student organizations, religious groups, and community leaders to mobilize the community in support of the Milk with Dignity Program. Migrant Justice organizers organized pickets lines, marches, and public speeches at Ben and Jerry’s locations throughout the U.S.[19], until eventually the company joined the Milk with Dignity Program.

The coalition that Migrant Justice created proved to be of extreme benefit to advocate on behalf of workers outside of the labor context. When two organizers were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Migrant Justice was able to rely on these networks as it “carried out successful campaigns that led to the release of the organizers.[20]”

Moreover, Migrant Justice organized a network of community members and allies that successfully lobbied for the state to grant access to drivers licenses to all VT residence (documented and undocumented)[21].

Conclusions & Lessons Learned

Historical exclusion from labor protections have denied farmworkers true access to structural power. The Justice for Farmworkers Campaign focused on legislative reform that would grant farmworkers access to Institutional Power. In Vermont, Migrant Justice created Institutional Power by using WSRN principles in their Milk With Dignity Program, which, through binding agreements, guarantees worker access to labor and human rights in a company’s supply chain.
The Justice for Farmworkers Campaign and Migrant Justice relied heavily on Associational and Societal Power. By developing farmworker leaders and including these leaders in the decision-making process, it guaranteed that the answers to workplace abuses came from the community affected by these labor violations. Further, both organizations relied on the strong networks that they built to push for other legislative victories for farmworkers at the state level.
The Justice for Farmworkers Campaign sought legislative reform to collective bargaining rights for farmworkers and Migrant Justice’s mode of organizing established enforceable, legally binding agreements with corporate buyers at the top of the supply chains. These approaches are complementary to reforming an industry that has harbored human and labor rights violations. Legislative reform will raise the bar on legal protections, while the WSR-N approach builds on those protections to reform the conditions workers experience in a particular industry by focusing on specific company’s supply chain.
Third-party certification schemes, particularly corporate-led initiatives, are not a real solution to the problems that have been present in the agriculture industry. To expose the weaknesses of such initiatives, labor organizers will have to focus on their networks to counter the corporate narrative that these programs are an alternative to structural change.

Links for further reading

Carly Fox, Rebecca Fuentes, Fabiola Ortiz Valdez, Gretchen Purser, and Kathleen Sexsmith. 2017. “Milked: Immigrant Dairy Farmworkers in New York State.” A report by the Workers’ Center of Central New York and the Worker Justice Center of New York. A report on the conditions farmworkers face in New York and policy recommendations. No paywall. https://milkedny.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/milked_053017.pdf
Avery Kelly, Staff Attorney at Corporate Accountability Lab. May 20, 2021. “Fair Trade USA & the Failures of Eco-Social Certification. An article by Corporate Accountability Lab detailing the weakness in Fair Trade USA’s dairy program. No paywall. https://corpaccountabilitylab.org/calblog/2021/5/20/fair-trade-usa-amp-the-failures-of-eco-social-certificationnbsp?ss_source=sscampaigns&ss_campaign_id=60abe37e2f9ad50cc76e5d6c&ss_email_id=60ae54be0fce515327ac7ccd&ss_campaign_name=CAL+Blog+Digest&ss_campaign_sent_date=2021-05-26T14%3A03%3A00Z
Migrant Justice and Milk with Dignity Standards Council. “Milk with Dignity First Biennial Report: 2018-2019. The report measures the impact of the first two years of the Milk with Dignity Program. No Paywall. https://milkwithdignity.org/sites/default/files/2020MDReport.pdf
Justice for Farmworkers Campaign website. This website was created to push for the legislative change known as Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act that was signed into law in 2019. No paywall. https://www.farmworkersny.org/
Migrant Justice’s website. I was able to find most of the information about Migrant Justice’s current work here. No paywall. https://migrantjustice.net/campaigns

[1] http://nfwm.org/farm-workers/farm-worker-issues/health-safety/#:~:text=When%20farm%20workers%20work%20all,cause%20of%20work%2Drelated%20death.&text=He%20died%20four%20weeks%20later.

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20093433/

[3] https://foodispower.org/human-labor-slavery/slavery-in-the-us/

[4] Perea, Juan. “The Echoes of Slavery: Recognizing the Racist Origins of the Agricultural and Domestic Worker

Exclusion from the National Labor Relations Act.” Loyola University Chicago, School of Law LAW eCommons:https://lawecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1150&context=facpubs

[5] https://cdmigrante.org/ny-farmworkers-win-the-right-to-organize/

[6] https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/11/farmworkers-organizing-marks-farm-agriculture-labor

[7] ID

[8] ID

[9] http://ruralmigrantministry.org/sites/default/files/docs/Members%20of%20coalition%202015.pdf

[10] https://migrantjustice.net/milk-with-dignity-campaign

[11] ID