"Farmworkers Push Kroger’s Shareholders for Heat and Labor Protections", July 24 2024

For years, U.S. farmworkers have been pressuring Kroger, the nation’s largest supermarket, to come to the table to establish stronger labor protections on the farms supplying its fruits and vegetables. Specifically, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a worker rights organization in Florida, has repeatedly asked Kroger to join its Fair Food Program, which has implemented the strongest heat protections in the nation.

Farmworkers took this a step further at Kroger’s annual shareholder meeting in late June, directing their plea for stronger human rights to the major financiers whose dividends depend on the under-recognized labor of farmworkers. They called upon the company’s shareholders—whose top investors are Vanguard, BlackRock, and Berkshire Hathaway—to support a proposal that Kroger publish a “just transition” report examining “how the risks to workers are changing due to rising temperatures” in its agricultural supply chain.

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Kroger did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

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The investors supporting the proposal claim that Kroger’s existing policies are failing to protect workers from climate risks and other human rights abuses, pointing to the death of a worker at Kroger’s distribution center from heat stress in 2023...

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...the proposal encourages Kroger to join the CIW’s Fair Food Program, which it describes as “the only farmworker program with a demonstrated track record of success in protecting farmworkers in U.S. agriculture from climate-related risks.”...

The Fair Food Program offers binding labor protections through a contract between farmworkers, farmers, and major food retailers, which is monitored by an independent council that operates a 24/7 trilingual complaint line. The program has been widely recognized for rooting out some of the most persistent abuses, including sexual assault and forced labor, that often plague corporate supply chains. The shareholder proposal asks Kroger to examine how its current policies compare to the Fair Food Program.

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