National Organizations

National Organizations

July 18 - 19, 2014 Board Meeting

1.Food Chain Workers Alliance (p. 29)

General support for an alliance of labor groups whose members work along various parts of the food chain in order to bring about a sustainable food system that includes fair labor practices. (

New/ Renewal / Priority / Urban/ Rural / Organization
Budget / Prior
Years of Funding / Total
Prior Funding / Grant
Amounts
Renewal / SA / Both / 2014: $250,000
2015: $279,700 / 5 / $131,200 / 2014: $25,000
2015: $25,000

2.Rural Coalition (p. 31)

General support to enhance the capacity of rural organizations to foster a more just and sustainable agriculture and food system.(

New/ Renewal / Priority / Urban/ Rural / Organization
Budget / Prior Years of Funding / Total
Prior Funding / Grant
Amounts
Renewal / SA / Rural / 2014: $816,500
2015: $957,500 / 19 / $551,500* / 2014: $25,000
2015: $25,000

*Includes a $100,000 Noyes Award in 2001

1. Food Chain Workers Alliance

$50,000 over two years – renewal

General support for an alliance of labor groups whose members work along various parts of the food chain in order to bring about a sustainable food system that includes fair labor practices. (Kolu)

ORGANIZATION PROFILE / DEVELOPMENT

The Food Chain Workers Alliance (FCWA) is a coalition of 22 member organizations focused on improving the wages and working conditions of workers who plant, harvest, process, pack, transport, prepare, serve and sell food. FCWA’s members have a combined membership of approximately 200,000. Food system workers account for over 13 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product and comprise close to one-sixth of the entire workforce. By working together, FCWA believes food workers can become a pivotal force for transforming the food system.

Organization led by people of color: Yes, multiple racial/ethnic groups

PAST GRANT ACTIVITY

Engaging affected people – leadership development

Leaders from member organizations participated in the following:

• Story-telling workshop: Ten learned to convey their personal stories in short compelling ways;
• Comprehensive issue training: Ten learned about structural racism, immigration reform, the Occupational Safety and Health Act and food sovereignty;
• Organizing Training: Eight learned outreach techniques and how to conduct home visits, design campaigns and engage in grassroots fundraising; and
• Quarterly peer-led leadership development calls.

FCWA leaders provided assistance to the staff of the Northwest Arkansas Workers’ Justice Center (NWAWJC) on organizing, campaign planning, message development, goal setting and conducting home visits. The Education and Communications Committee began writing a comic book on food chain worker organizing.

Expanding Influence & Intervening for Systemic Change – grassroots constituency,working in collaboration, policy development & advocacy

The federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, which amounts to $15,000 per year for a full-time worker, has not been increased since 2009; and the $2.13 minimum wage for tipped workers has not been increased in 20 years. Costs for food, housing and transportation have steadily risen as the ranks of low-wage workers have swelled. More than half the low-wage workers are women and close to half are people of color. In light of these facts, the FCWA responded to President Obama’s call for an increase in the minimum wage by gathering signatures from over 100 organizations, leaders and food businesses on a letter asking policy-makers to renew debate on increasing the federal minimum wage. A video featuring food chain workers talking about what it is like to work long hours for very low wages was distributed online and directed viewers to sign a petition. The Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights, a FWCA member that is directed by Jaribu Hill, played an important role by getting a member of Congress to co-sponsor the Fair Minimum Wage Act. In mid-February, FCWA, along with Restaurant Opportunities Center United (ROC-United, grantee), delivered a minimum wage petition with 100,000 signatures to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. The next day, Congress reintroduced the Wage Act.

Joann Lo, FCWA’s executive director, was asked to join the Los Angeles Food Policy Council, in recognition of her leadership in developing the Good Food Purchasing Policy (GFPP) that incorporated strong worker standards. This policy was adopted by the City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District, which serves 650,000 meals each day and is the largest foodpurchaser in Los Angeles. GFPP, a model that can be adopted by other cities, rates suppliers across criteria pertaining to local economic impact, environmental sustainability, fair working conditions and pay, animal welfare, and nutrition. It was developed by stakeholders, including farmers, food distributors, public health officials, labor representatives, environmental and animal welfare organizations, and restaurants and institutional food purchasers.

Exerting Strong Voices & Expanding Influence

FCWA’s second annual International Food Workers Week built greater public awareness. It successfully placed stories in outlets as diverse as the Huffington Post (Raj Patel’s Recognize, Reward and Reduce McJobs This Thanksgiving) and Al Jazeera (How foodies can become champions for workers’ rights). The buzz included hundreds of social media hits and a poster shared on Facebook over 200 times. FCWA produced three new videos, including Guess Who’s Coming to Breakfast (shown at the March Board meeting), which reached over 1,500 viewers in just one month. Findings from The Hands that Feed Us, FCWA’s 2012 report, are still being cited. For example:

• A post on PBS’Frontline used data from the report to argue for food worker rights.

• John Hopkins’Center for a Livable Future plans to use graphics from the report for a book; and
• Joann was invited to write a chapter on the global food system for a textbook on public health.

PROPOSED GRANT ACTIVITY

Intervening for Systemic Change – policy development & advocacy

Dignity at Darden Campaign: FCWA will coordinate communications and strategy development for worker organizing in Darden’s supply chain. NWAWJCand FCWA will train worker-leaders to organize at Simmons poultry processing company, which supplies Darden. FCWA wants Darden’s employees and the employees of its suppliers to have a supplier code of conduct that gives them enforcement power. They will prepare workers to lead protest actions to coincide with Darden’s September shareholder meeting, demanding that Darden make public the code of conduct it claims to have.

Walmart Campaign: FCWA will coordinate communication among Warehouse Workers for Justice, Warehouse Workers Resource Center, International Labor Rights Forum and NWAWJC, and provide information about other groups whose members work in Walmart’s supply chain. In 2015, FCWA will publish a report of workers’ stories on labor violations throughout Walmart’s food supply chain, exposing its disregard for its own supplier code of conduct. FCWA will work on this campaign with other food justice organizations, such as the Real Food Challenge, Union of Concerned Scientists, Movement Strategy Center, U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance, California Farm to School Network and Domestic Fair Trade Association.

Stop the Other NRA campaign: FCWA will join with ROC-United to ask members of Congress not to take money from the National Restaurant Association, the lobbyist most influential in preventing an increase in the federal minimum wage.

ANALYSIS

The food system is dominated by monopsonistic global corporations that maximize profits by exerting pressure down their supply chains to demand delivery of products and services as inexpensively as possible. This top-down pressure, which is bad for workers and the environment, is most effectively countered through worker organizing, from the bottom up, with an organization like FCWA facilitating communication and coordination across workplaces and industries. At the five-year mark, FCWA has secured its nonprofit status, right-sized its board from 15 to 11, hired an experienced full-time organizer, added six new members and begun to develop a donor base. It has also appreciably altered the discourse within the food movement. A two-year grant will support its continued growth, and give food chain workers a fighting chance to win fair working conditions, decent wages and basic dignity.

2. Rural Coalition

$50,000 over two years - renewal

General support to enhance the capacity of rural organizations to foster a more just and sustainable agriculture and food system. (Kolu)

ORGANIZATION PROFILE / DEVELOPMENT

The Rural Coalition (RC), a 36-year-old multicultural alliance, has led many campaigns to advance progressive food, land, and farm policy by educating, developing, and mobilizing its membership of more than 60 independent community-based groups in the U.S. and Mexico, representing African American, Mexican, Latino, Asian Pacific Islander, European American and Native American people. RC members engage in a variety of strategies in pursuit of equitable and sustainable development in rural communities, human rights and food sovereignty.

Organization led by people of color: Yes, multiple racial/ethnic groups

PAST GRANT ACTIVITY

Expanding Influence & Exerting Strong Voices – working in collaboration

GOAT – Getting Our Act Together on the Farm Bill: RC and the Community Food Justice Coalition co-led GOAT’s coordination by facilitating the sharing of updates, policy briefs, and sign-on letters, and hosting weekly calls with dozens of organizations, many of whom had little prior experience with Farm Bill advocacy. RC’s seemingly tireless organizing during a very protracted Farm Bill debate failed to avert a deep blow to the program that funds nonprofits (including RC) to provide technical assistance and training to “historically disadvantaged” producers (Native, African American, Latino and women farmers). Not only was this program’s budget slashed in half, butits eligibility criteria were expanded to include veteran farmers and ranchers. RC succeeded in winning support from some veteran advocacy groups to sign on to its call for Congress to restore program funding.

RC served as the national advocacy organization partner for EAT4Health Fellow Diana Lopez, who was promoted to executive director of the Southwest Workers’ Union (grantee). RC helped Diana create an impressive policy brief, Food Insecurity and the Working Poor, and guide its distribution to members of the Texas congressional delegation. RC also supported the national campaign to increase the federal minimum wage led by the Food Chain Workers Alliance and Restaurant Opportunities Center United (grantees), and it participated in the Good Food for All collaboration, which articulated an inclusive, equity-based vision for the food movement. To advance shared work on economic democracy, civic participation, transparency and accountability, RC developed relationships with the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network, American Sustainable Business Council, Main Street Alliance, Democracy Initiative and OpenTheGovernment.org.

Engaging Affected People

RC held its annual meeting in Washington, DC, this year, enabling members to visit their representatives on the Hill and attend its annual Winter Forum. Holding these two events back to back resulted in a large turnout and significant participation by youth who voiced their interest in working on the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act.

PROPOSED GRANT ACTIVITY

Engaging Affected People

The RC board and committee members will take part in the development of a five-year strategic plan, outlining its future direction and leadership. The plan will include ways in which RC can strengthen its national voice, build member capacity to implement local projects, secure agency resources, expand participation in federal agriculture programs and conceptualize a strategy for a more transformative 2018 Farm Bill. The plan will include a RC Youth Initiative to strengthen its members’ youth programs and help them nurture a national cohort of youth leaders equipped toadvance an equity agenda into the future. Toward this end, it will work closely with RC members Rooted in Community (past grantee) and 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement, in Selma, AL. The three organizations will organize a youth contingent to attend the 2015 Bridge Crossing Jubilee on the 50th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday as part of RC’s initiative to expand voting rights and civic engagement. RC will also plan a large gathering of members in 2015, possibly in New Mexico in conjunction with the tenthanniversary of the National Latino Farmers and Ranchers Trade Association, an RC member.

Intervening for Systemic Change – policy development & advocacy

RC will engage seasoned and new leaders in policy analysis, development and education, and will expose a new generation of leaders to the policy-making process to:

• Restore up to $20 million in funding for the Outreach and Assistance program for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers, which was reduced to $10 million per year in the 2014 Farm Bill;

• Ensure that policy priorities focused on equity are preserved, expanded and implemented through the Farm Bill and its rulemaking processes;
• Hold USDA accountable for fair and equitable access to programs, and to intervene when service delivery is inadequate or inequitable;
• Monitor all the USDA discrimination settlements to their final conclusions; and
• Work with allies on the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act and on the Fair Minimum Wage Act.

Intervening for Systemic Change – demonstrating new models

With RC providing capacity building, its member organizations will continue to work with local farmers and farmworkers to develop community gardens, design community development projects, access credit, and in other ways resource their work. RC will also continue to provide fiscal sponsorship for a young national organization, Alianza Nacional De Campesinas (the National Farmworker Women’s Alliance). It will collaborate with Slow Food USA to celebrate the cultures and assets of rural communities, and plan a delegation to participate in the October international heritage food trade show, Terra Madre, in Turin, Italy. This event will serve as an opportunity to build members’ skills around sharing their communities’ stories, culture, food and histories in ways that promote international alliances and support fair trade.

ANALYSIS

For nearly four decades, RC has served as a critical advocacy voice for African, Native, Asian and European Americans, Latino and women farmers and ranchers, farmworkers, rural communities in the U.S., and some campesino and indigenous communities in Mexico. Noyes helped bring RC to the attention of the Kellogg Foundation, which resulted in some significant funding. However, its base of foundation supporters is too thin and RC relies too heavily on USDA, the very agency it seeks to reform. Over the years it has focused on developing the financial and human resources of its members, but neglected its own organizational strength. Its proposed focus on organizational development during the next two years is a very good sign and a two-year grant may now leverage support from other funders.

Regional Organizations

July 18 - 19, 2014 Board Meeting

3.El Comité de Apoyo a los Trabajadores Agrícolas (p. 35)

General support for grassroots organizing work on environmental, economic justice and sustainable agriculture issues with farmworkers on the Eastern Seaboard migrant stream. (

New/ Renewal / Priority / Urban/ Rural / Regions / Organization
Budget / Years of Funding / Total
Funding / Grant
Amounts
Renewal / EJ/ SA / Both / Northeast South Atlantic / 2014: $561,155
2015: $578,500 / 10 / $589,500* / (EJ: $10,000 in 2014)
(SA: $10,000 in 2014, $20,000 in 2015)
2014: $20,000
2015: $20,000

*Includes:$202,500 from EAT4Health; and $95,275 from Diversifying Leadership

4.Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund(p. 37)

General support for work with communities to counter corporate power by asserting local democratic control to ban harmful practices and promote sustainability. (

New/ Renewal / Priority / Urban/ Rural / Regions / Organization
Budget / Prior
Years of Funding / Total
Prior Funding / Grant
Amount
Renewal / SA / Both / Northeast and Pacific / $978,500 / 13 / $284,250 / 2014: $10,000

3. El Comité de Apoyo a los Trabajadores Agrícolas

$40,000 over two years– renewal

General support for grassroots organizing work on environmental, economic justice and sustainable agriculture issues with farmworkers on the Eastern Seaboard migrant stream. (Millie and Kolu)

Multiple funding priorities: Environmental justice ($10,000); and sustainable agriculture and food systems ($30,000)

ORGANIZATION PROFILE / DEVELOPMENT

El Comité de Apoyo a los Trabajadores Agrícolas (CATA) is a 33-year-old farmworker organization working in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the Delmarva Peninsula (Delaware, Maryland and Virginia). CATA’s executive director, Nelson Carasquillo, is an EAT4Health Fellow.

Organization led by people of color: Yes, Latino

PAST GRANT ACTIVITY

Engaging Affected People & Exerting Strong Voices

CATA provided training and leadership development in the following areas:

Workplace abuses: It supported the Kaolin Workers Union, which organizes mushroom packers, by assisting with outreach, a newsletter publication, financial management and documentation of workplace conditions; worked with over 100 farmworkers to protest unjust firings, get jobs back and recover lost wages; and participated in labor rights trainings to prepare workers to address harassment, health and safety violations, wage issues, and wrongful termination.

Immigration reform: CATA conducted five trainings and held two forums on immigration where its members created a shared analysis of the best way to collectively address this issue despite the gridlock in Congress. In preparation for immigration reform, members agreed to establish a farmworker credit union where they can safely save money, establish credit, build equity and increase economic stability.

Health and safety: Workers were trained in the handling of toxic pesticides and precautions mandated as part of the EPA’s Agricultural Worker Protection Standard (WPS), as well as how to file complaints when violations occur. It offered HIV testing and counseling, and information about other sexually transmitted disease; and provided training about housing rights.

Strengthening organizational capacity: CATA took steps to develop an internet-based radio station to broadcast educational programming in Spanish and a number of indigenous languages spoken by farmworkers.