In Southwestern Florida, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers have been fighting for over a decade for some basic labor rights. This NY Times article highlights that one of the big pushes is for wages to be increased by $.01 per pound of tomatoes picked.
That would be roughly a 60% increase in labor wages. The coalition-made up of mostly Haitian, Central American, and Mexican workers has had some recent success with negotiating a Code of Conduct with restaurant chains. The current effort is targeting large grocery stores to try to get them to agree to pay a more fair wage for those who harvest tomatoes and other fruits.
The change is still being resisted by all supermarket chains besides Whole Foods. If it passes, it would bring up 30,000 workers from abject poverty into survivable poverty. It would be an approximate wage increase from $10,000 per year to $17,000 per year.
