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The Migrant Farmworker Justice Project filed suits against tomato grower Ag-Mart, alleging that its electronic timekeeping system recorded fewer hours than workers worked during harvesting seasons beginning in 2005-06. The MFJP says that the system, used for over 1,000 harvesters, does not credit workers for time they must wait out bad weather, and automatically deducts 90 minutes for lunch.

The MFJP sued Everglades Harvesting on behalf of five Mexican H-2A workers who alleged that they were not paid the minimum wage in 2007-08. The five were fired part-way through the season because they could not pick fast enough to earn the minimum wage at the piece rate offered. A MFJP suit against vegetable grower C & B Farms alleges that in 2008-09 some 200 workers did not receive the minimum wage of $6.55 an hour.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, formed in 1993, has been trying to persuade Florida tomato growers to pay their harvest workers an additional penny a pound for the tomatoes they pick. Florida tomatoes are mature greens, picked while green and gassed to turn them red. Most are picked in 32-pound buckets for $0.40 to $0.45 a bucket.

The CIW mounted consumer boycotts of Taco Bell, McDonald's, Subway and Burger King until these fast-food chains agreed to raise the price they pay for tomatoes by 1.5 cents a pound and have growers pass the extra penny on to pickers (the other half cent is to cover administrative costs). Tomato growers resisted implementing the penny-a-pound agreements, and the extra penny has been accumulating in escrow accounts.

In September 2009 the CIW announced a new agreement between tomato grower East Coast Growers and Packers and Denver-based Chipotle Mexican Grill under which East Coast Growers will raise its picking piece rate from $0.50 to $0.82 a bucket. Also in September 2009, Compass Group North America (www.cgnad.com), a foodservice provider of six million meals daily in universities and other institutions, agreed to pay an additional 1.5 cents a pound for the Florida tomatoes it buys.

Compass said it would buy tomatoes only from East Coast, the third-largest Florida tomato grower with 7,000 acres, until other growers agree to pass an additional penny a pound on to their workers and satisfy other requirements, including having time clocks to record worker hours and agreeing to third-party audits. East Coast resigned from the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange to sell to Compass, which is the parent company of Bon Appetit Management Company that signed an agreement with the CIW in April 2009.

Under the Compass-CIW agreement, the CIW will be able to educate tomato pickers on their rights, on company time at the worksite.

The CIW, which claims 4,000 members, hailed the agreements with Chipotle and Compass. The $400 million Florida tomato industry argues that the CIW is not a union recognized as bargaining agent for any tomato growers, and that fast-food chains cannot dictate wages to their suppliers.

North Carolina. DOL issued citations to nine blueberry farms and 17 farm labor contractors in Bladen and Craven counties for violations of labor laws, including employing underage workers, failing to disclose employment terms and conditions, inadequate recordkeeping and failing to pay the minimum wage. DOL found that 428 workers were due $40,000 in back wages, and imposed civil money penalties of $31,000 on the offending employers.

The Farm Labor Organizing Committee's held its 11th triennial convention in October 2009 in Toledo, Ohio. Baldemar Vel squez founded FLOC in Ohio to help workers who pick cucumbers to receive higher wages by bypassing their farm employers and pressuring pickle processors including Campbell's and Heinz. For the past decade, FLOC has focused on North Carolina, which has far more workers employed in tobacco, vegetable, and other farm production. FLOC is currently targeting Reynolds American, aiming to get a major tobacco buyer to improve wages and working conditions for farm workers.

Georgia. Tifton, Georgia vegetable farmer Bill Brim was named Southeastern Farmer of 2009. After buying Lewis Taylor Farms with a partner in 1985, the farm expanded to 2,500 acres of owned and 1,500 acres of rented land. It employs 500 H-2A workers.

Tom Karst, "Foodservice company pledges penny-a-pound increase for Florida tomato pickers," The Packer, September 25, 2009. Laura Layden, "Five lawsuits accuse growers of cheating Florida farmworkers out of pay," Naples Daily News, July 11, 2009.