USA Today celebrates Labor Day with a CIW Op/Ed: “My friend almost died of dehydration. Farm workers like us need better protection.”

Gerardo Reyes Chavez (standing left) and his fellow CIW farmworkers conduct an educational session for workers at an FFP farm in Tennessee in July 2024.

Gerardo Reyes Chavez in USA Today: “The thermometer doesn’t lie. It’s just common sense that we need more protection, not less, to protect our state’s essential outdoor workers from the dangers of our warming planet.”

“While the Fair Food Program is great for workers, it’s also great for employers and retail brands. That’s because it addresses long-standing human rights abuses like forced labor, child labor, physical violence, and sexual abuse.”

This Labor Day, USA Today published an op-ed by Gerardo Reyes Chavez, a farmworker and longtime leader of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. In his editorial, Chavez draws on his personal experience harvesting watermelons—perhaps the toughest job in the fields, performed during the height of summer heat—to share a near-tragedy with another crew member and to outline the transformative power of the Fair Food Program, emphasizing the urgent need for farmworkers across the country to be protected by the industry’s leading standards.

We hope that as you celebrate Labor Day, you will take a moment to read Chavez’s timely piece. The full piece is below, and you can also view it on the USA Today site by clicking here.

Enjoy! And stay tuned for more coverage of the impact FFP is having across the country!

My friend almost died of dehydration. Farm workers like us need better protection.

As temperatures rise, so do the risks for outdoor workers. Fair Food Program aims to help both manual workers and businesses.

Ten summers ago, just outside the small northern Florida town of Marianna, about an hour’s drive from Tallahassee, I watched helplessly as a man I call my brother nearly died from the relentless heat of the watermelon harvest.

Our team moved together through the treeless field, rhythmically tossing melons from the rows to the truck, joking as we often did to distract ourselves from the hot, hard work. Suddenly my friend lost consciousness and fell hard to the ground. We quickly carried him to the only shade we could find, wetting the shirts on our backs with thermos water to keep him cool until the ambulance arrived. For what felt like an eternity, my friend’s life hung in the balance.

He eventually came around, and after a few hours in the hospital and a much-needed IV, he was back at work the next day, throwing melons with the rest of the crew. But the shock and fear we all felt that day was a wake-up call, reminding us that the symptoms we often joked about—crippling cramps, dizziness, disorientation, and an unquenchable thirst—were serious signs of chronic dehydration and could be fatal.

And the statistics bear it out: According to the National Institutes of Health, farmworkers are 35 times more likely to die from heat-related illness than workers in other sectors.

Gerardo Reyes Chavez harvests watermelons in Florida

Today, ten years later, I work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a human rights organization based in the farming community of Immokalee, Florida. We educate workers about their rights under the CIW’s groundbreaking Fair Food Program, including protections that The Washington Post recently called “America’s strongest workplace heat rules.”

But it seems not everyone believes outdoor workers need more protection in the era of accelerating climate change. In April, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law banning local governments from requiring employers to provide heat breaks to outdoor workers, including farmworkers.

This is the exact opposite of constructive leadership. We can all see that it is getting warmer, not colder. The thermometer doesn’t lie. It is just common sense that we need more protection, not less, to protect our state’s essential outdoor workers from the dangers of our warming planet.

What does the Fair Food Program do?

The Fair Food Program is unique in the area of ​​business and human rights for two important reasons.

First, because the standards – and the controls that enforce the standards – have been created, developed and expanded over time by the workers themselves.

And second, because the oversight and enforcement of those standards is driven by real power, what people in the fruit and vegetable industry call “the power of the purchasing order.”

More than a dozen of the nation’s largest buyers of fruits and vegetables — including, so far, Walmart, McDonald’s, Whole Foods Market, Burger King and hospitality giant Compass Group — have signed legally binding agreements pledging to buy from farms that meet the Fair Food Program’s code of conduct and to no longer purchase from farms suspended from the program for serious code violations.

A third-party human rights organization, the Fair Food Standards Council, monitors compliance on participating farms through a combination of a complaint investigation process – including a confidential, 24/7 hotline where workers can report complaints without fear of reprisal – and regular, in-depth audits, in which trained investigators interview at least 50% of the workforce.

As many as 82% of these complaints are resolved within a month.

To ensure that workers are equipped to fulfill their important role as guardians of their rights, my colleagues and I at CIW regularly organize rights education sessions on participating farms. This trains farm workers to be the eyes and ears of the program on the ground.

The Fair Food Program’s heat stress protections, which include providing workers with shade, water, electrolytes, exercise and regular breaks, are a key part of the program’s standards.

Taking care of employees is good for business

A farm worker discusses conditions on the farm with a Fair Food Program auditor

While the Fair Food Program is great for workers, it’s also great for employers and retail brands. That’s because it addresses long-standing human rights abuses like forced labor, child labor, physical violence, and sexual abuse.

This protects employers from costly legal risks and protects buyers from supply chain interruptions that can be damaging to business operations, not to mention brand reputations.

Although they now operate in 23 U.S. states and three countries, most farmworkers in Florida and the rest of the United States remain outside the protections of the Fair Food Program, often facing exploitation and abuse.

Jon Esformes, CEO of Sunripe Certified Brands, has been an invaluable leader in the Fair Food Program since 2010. I’ve learned a lot from Jon over our many years of partnership, but one thing in particular stands out: “If you have to break the law or hurt your workers to stay in business, you need to find a new line of business.”

Employers, retailers and politicians who oppose stricter heat protection would do well to take Jon’s words to heart.

Gerardo Reyes Chavez is a senior staff member at the award-winning human rights organization Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). A farmworker who has worked in the fields since he was 11, first as a farmer in Mexico and then in the fields in Florida, Reyes educates thousands of farmworkers on workers’ rights on farms across the United States as part of the Fair Food Program.