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Migration Working Group
part of the Mission & Advocacy Committee
Trader Joe’s Signs Fair Food Agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers
On February 9, 2012 Trader Joe’s signed a Fair Food Agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. In doing so, the Monrovia, CA-based supermarket chain added its purchasing power to undergirding the Fair Food Program that is delivering improved wages and new rights to farmworkers harvesting tomatoes in Florida.
Statement by the Rev. Gradye Parsons, Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and Linda Valentine, Executive Director, General Assembly Mission Counsel, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
On behalf of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), we commend Trader Joe’s and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers on reaching this agreement. By joining the Fair Food Program, Trader Joe’s has strengthened this successful, collaborative model between farmworkers, corporations, growers and consumers, that is advancing farmworkers’ human rights, corporate accountability, and consumer confidence. This humane, cooperative Fair Food Program enables all of us to love our neighbors even as we feed our families.
Presbyterians care deeply about how the food that we purchase has been produced. For more than ten years our church has worked assiduously with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and people of conscience from across the nation toward that day when we will be able to enter a supermarket and purchase tomatoes knowing that the men and women who labored to harvest them were treated with respect, dignity, and fairness. Today, because of Trader Joe’s decision to join the Fair Food Program, we are one step closer to that day.
The supermarket industry buys most of the tomatoes harvested by Florida farmworkers. And so it is imperative that leading supermarket chains use their power to undergird the Fair Food Program. We take this occasion to call, yet again, upon Publix, Ahold and Kroger to stop standing on the sidelines. Inaction the face of generations of exploitation and a proven model for change is not neutral. Your refusal to join the Fair Food Program threatens to undermine these important gains. The time is now for you to join Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods Market and the eight other major food retailers who are working with the CIW and Florida growers to eliminate exploitation and slavery in the tomato fields.
We celebrate this momentous agreement between Trader Joe’s and the CIW, the PC(USA) renews its commitment to strive with the CIW and its allies for a more just, sustainable and fair food industry.
About the Migration Working Group
The Presbytery of Genesee Valley represents sixty-nine Presbyterian (USA) churches in the Rochester, NY and the surrounding five-county area. Our congregations are a diverse composite of urban, rural, and suburban men, women, and children of faith.
There is a calling that unifies us and drives us to push for justice in an important human rights issue of our day. This calling is comprehensive immigration reform. Congress needs to make comprehensive immigration reform a priority and take into consideration the needs of immigrant laborers and our agricultural economy.
The Genesee Valley, a rich agricultural land base, is ripe with family farms growing local vegetables and grains, raising livestock, and milking dairy cows. An adequate, legal and reliable supply of workers is one of the most pressing issues facing farmers in our valley today. Our environment is unique because the work is both seasonal on fruit and vegetable farms, and year-long on dairy farms. Additionally, agricultural products are highly perishable.
Our current immigration policy continues to fail our local economy and our foreign-born neighbors. Reform of our employment-based immigration system is absolutely necessary to readily address the need for workers and to strengthen our troubled agricultural economy. Immigrant labor has become an increasingly important component of many agricultural businesses.
- As Christians we are called to continually show love for the stranger.
- As people of faith, we perceive immigrants differently.
- We are called to care for the poor and welcome all of God’s people.
- The hospitality Jesus taught is not a decorative add-on to our beliefs, but a central tenet.
- This means keeping children and parents together, and establishing pathways by which our immigrant sisters and brothers may seek a better life for themselves and their families.
- We also believe that showing compassion to the immigrant does not require abandoning fairness and safety.
- We understand the need for our country to control its borders, and we see the need for real enforcement at the workplace to protect against unscrupulous employers who lower the bar for all workers.
- We also understand that the situation of the 12 million undocumented immigrants who are already living in this country must be honestly addressed.
- Finally, we understand that valuing families means we must not tear spouses apart or parents away from their children because of their citizenship status.
Comprehensive immigration reform is the solution to many of these issues. It is both practical and just, and reflects the direction and goals we should desire for our nation.
Most importantly, it will begin to liberate us from the divisions we currently face so we can turn our attention to the real challenge—how to build an economy and society that integrates and rewards anyone who wants to make a positive contribution to our nation’s welfare.
It is our responsibility to hold our nation’s leaders to a higher calling. We pray that
- President Obama and Congress will do all in their power to bring about comprehensive immigration reform.
- Our continued efforts in our churches, our communities, and in Washington, will help supply our leaders with the will to do what is right for all people who call this country home.
The Presbytery’s vision is to Know Christ, Live Christ, and Share Christ—with all people.