Justice for Migrants

By Brenna Reagan

11/10/2016

While Vermont prides itself on its dairy industry, which makes up 70 percent of the state’s agricultural sales, there are countless injustices occurring against the foundation of this enterprise. The agricultural divisions of the Vermont government have passed agricultural regulation bills, but have not spoken to the issues faced by migrant farmworkers. As climate change raises difficult questions about local food, sustainable agricultural practices, and downsizing the scale of industrial agriculture, issues of injustice are also important to consider for the success of these changing systems.

Migrant Justice, or Justicia Migrante, is a human rights and food justice organization in Burlington, Vermont. The group was founded in 2009 after a dairy farmworker was, “dragged into dairy machinery and strangled by his own clothing,” according to the New York Times.  From 2011 to 2013, Migrant Justice worked to garner support for the enactment of Bill S-38, a Vermont policy that allows immigrants to access a driver’s license regardless of immigration status. Marita Canedo, a Migrant Justice representative in Burlington, Vermont, explained to me that driving allows an escape from isolation, and provides access to food and the ability to seek medical attention, fulfilling previously neglected needs.

According to Migrant Justice, there are between 1,200 and 1,500 farmworkers in Vermont that are undocumented migrant workers, most of whom seek jobs at dairy farms. They find dairy jobs in the northeast after escaping “their countries’ big oil companies [which have] taken control over natural resources, bringing the economy down, and closing doors to a better future,” explains Canedo.

For this population working at the base of the dairy supply chain in Vermont, blatant injustices are a norm. According to a 2014 Migrant Justice survey, close to 30 percent of dairy farm workers claim that they work seven or more hours a day without a break to eat, 40 percent do not have a day off, and 40 percent do not receive the Vermont minimum wage. 52 percent of the 46 cases addressed by Migrant Justice have witnessed situations in which paychecks were withheld, stolen, or bounced.

Housing for the farmworkers is considered substandard and even inhumane, as noted in the Migrant Justice Survey, with 15 percent of respondents stating that their provided living conditions have insufficient heating and 20 percent saying that they do not have a bathroom or access to clean water. Some farmworkers have even expressed that they felt like “slaves” to this system.

In 2014, the Milk with Dignity program by Migrant Justice begun its campaign. They called upon Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, due to the company’s advocacy for high standards of food sourcing and social justice, to mandate better treatment of workers in their supply chain. Migrant Justice noted that although the ice cream company had impressive commitments to rBGH-free cows, cage-free eggs, and fair-trade ingredients, Ben & Jerry’s had yet to take “action to ensure the farmworkers who put the cream in ice cream are treated with dignity and respect.”  On June 19, 2014, the company responded to Migrant Justice’s campaign by signing an agreement to pay premiums to farms that fully abide by the Milk with Dignity Code of Conduct.

This campaign exemplifies the growing institutional support for Migrant Justice; however, the community of migrant farmworkers remains unstable and vulnerable. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recognizes that climate change will affect the poorest and most vulnerable populations who “depend on natural ecosystems to extract their food and income” as the effects of climate change are expected to interfere with “activities such as food production and outdoor work, degrading the performance of sustainable development.”

The migrant farmworker community will be directly affected by changes resulting from Vermont’s increased focus on organic, local, and fair farms in the face of climate change. Canedo emphasizes that “we know and constantly communicate, that if we want to have [a] world with better food, real food, fair food, we cannot forget the hands that bring the food to our tables. Our struggles are connected, and we all have the responsibility to raise awareness and bring change.”