SHELDON - Erasto Lopez has worked at the Machia & Sons Dairy for five years as a milker. He's grateful the farm is part of Migrant Justice's Milk with Dignity program .
"Having the farm in the program means we have a lot of rights and benefits that other farmworkers aren't able to count on, because we have regular meetings together with the boss, where we hear about what protections we have," Lopez said. "It really makes a difference. There is a minimum wage we have to be paid. That's not true outside the program. We have safety protections on the farm other farms don't have."
Migrant Justice , a nonprofit organization based in Burlington, was formed in 2009 by farmworkers after a 19-year-old worker named Jose Obeth Santiz Cruz died when his winter clothing got tangled up in a mechanized gutter scraper in the dairy barn and he was strangled. Cruz had no training on the scraper and was working alone on a night shift.
"That was the spark," said Will Lambek, an organizer for Migrant Justice. "(Farmworkers) started to come together with a sense of 'We don't want anyone else to go home in a body bag.'"
Migrant Justice launched Milk with Dignity in 2018 to enlist milk buyers in an effort to improve the lives of undocumented farmworkers in Vermont who have no other recourse if they are mistreated. These workers live in the shadows, fearful of being deported, and hesitant to utilize the normal channels for reporting abuse or neglect in their working and living conditions.
Currently, only Ben & Jerry's is a member of the program, and it took three years to convince one of the most liberal, mission-driven companies out there to join. As a member of Milk with Dignity, Ben & Jerry's requires adherence to a code of conduct − authored by farmworkers themselves − for housing and working conditions on the farms that supply the ice cream maker with milk, and pays a premium to farmers to cover "raises and improvements."
If a farmer falls short on meeting the standards of Milk with Dignity, the farm risks getting kicked out of the program and losing the premium payments from Ben & Jerry's. Lambek said Migrant Justice receives no revenue from either Ben & Jerry's or the farms in the Milk with Dignity program.
For the past five years, Migrant Justice has been trying to bring the supermarket chain Hannaford − one of the largest buyers of milk in the Northeast − into the Milk with Dignity program, often with aggressive tactics that have included protests at Hannaford locations, calling for a boycott. Lambek said Migrant Justice went public with its campaign when Hannaford refused to engage with the nonprofit, even attending shareholder meetings for Ahold Delhaize , the Dutch company that owns Hannaford.
"Migrant Justice has reached out to shareholders to say, 'Hey there are these abuses happening in the dairy supply chain,'" Lambek said. "Investors rightly understand it's a risk to the company."
Hannaford says it's already engaged in protecting farmworkers' rights, on a bigger scale than Milk with Dignity
Ericka Dodge, director of external communications for Hannaford, said the grocery chain announced publicly 18 months ago it wasn't going to join Milk with Dignity, both because of its limited scope, focused solely on Hannaford's private label milk in Vermont, and because Hannaford is making its own efforts to protect farmworkers.
Dodge said Hannaford was the first retailer in the country to bring transparency to its seafood supply chain, following publication of an investigation by the Associated Press in 2015 that revealed modern day slavery in the Thai seafood industry.
"This whole idea of elevating transparency and improving rights for workers in our supply chain is not new to us," Dodge said. "I think what's important here is that we share the goals of Migrant Justice when it comes to safeguarding dignity and well-being of farmworkers."
Hannaford has its own "Standards of Engagement" with its dairy supply chain, Dodge said, which include "provisions for how suppliers must treat and compensate workers, provisions on workplace health, safety and housing," as well as prohibitions against discrimination, child labor, "precarious employment," and forced labor.
Vermont is a small part of Hannaford's dairy supply chain
Hannaford sells milk sourced from hundreds of farms in Maine, New York and Massachusetts, Dodge said, in addition to Vermont. She said the company is working with dairy industry groups and its suppliers, who are working with co-ops to try to improve living and working conditions for farmworkers.
"We only get 10% of our milk from Vermont," said Leigh Chase, Hannaford's director of categories. "We could have walked away from this whole thing (and said) we're not going to bother buying milk from Vermont, but we're not willing to do that. We want to fix this issue. When we heard concerns of labor and how people are treated we quickly started visiting farms to see what was going on."
Chase said she has visited "many farms" in Vermont, and found farm owners who want to do the right thing, but need support to address their challenges. She did not, however, inspect farmworker housing in her visits to Vermont. Substandard housing, infested with rats and cockroaches, has been one of the main allegations Migrant Justice has made against farms in Hannaford's supply chain.
"We did not go into the housing, I'll be honest, because the housing belongs to the workers, it's their home," Chase said. "In some cases, some were home, having a rest break. We knew the location of some of them through these assessments. We're trying to get a better understanding of the housing conditions. That's what we're trying to influence. That's why third-party assessments are critical."
Hood , Hannaford's supplier of private brand milk, is working with milk co-ops to assess living and working conditions on Vermont dairy farms, Dodge said, in addition to other concerns such as animal welfare and environmental impact Hood has engaged Food Safety Net Services to do a third-party assessment of the co-op's efforts, according to Dodge.
"We recognize third-party assessment is best, not Hannaford, not Hood, not the farmworkers," Dodge said.
Migrant Justice gives Hannaford credit for setting policy, but says the company falls short on implementation
Migrant Justice maintains that while Hannaford's standards of engagement include "good guidance," the company falls short on implementation.
"Migrant Justice has documented cases of physical abuse, substandard housing, discrimination, rampant health and safety violations, and retaliation on farms that sell to Hannaford's suppliers," Migrant Justice stated in a March 4 letter to the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre in London. "Without adequate training or protection from retaliation, Hannaford's standards of engagement offer these workers no meaningful protections."
Ahold Delhaize, the Dutch company that owns Hannaford, responded to the allegations from Migrant Justice by saying it recognizes migrant workers are "vulnerable throughout supply chains worldwide, particularly in agriculture," and that it takes reports of abuse very seriously.
"Whenever there are allegations or reports of non-compliance with Ahold Delhaize's Standards of Engagement, the Ahold Delhaize brands follow up on those," the company continued. "That is why Hannaford has been, and continues to be, engaged in a thorough due diligence review across its dairy supply chain."
In response, Migrant Justice repeated its claims of physical abuse, substandard housing and other violations on farms that sell to Hannaford's suppliers and said the only consequence of "Hannaford's engagement" has been posting of "Restricted Access" signs that workers view as an attempt to bar advocates from visiting them in on-farm housing.
Ben & Jerry's believes Milk with Dignity is making a difference
Cheryl Pinto, global head of values-led sourcing for Ben & Jerry's, believes the Milk with Dignity program has been successful from a variety of angles.
"One of those angles is greater transparency in working, living and housing conditions," she said. "We think many more companies should be looking to adopt the program. It puts the people who are impacted at the table, giving them a voice to speak about how they're treated."
Pinto said it's important to acknowledge the importance of migrant workers on the frontlines of agriculture, "making sure food gets to the table."
"What we do know is these farms need these workers," Pinto said. "They're providing critical support to farmers who don't have any other options, in most cases."
Tio says he can go to the boss when the washer or dryer breaks down
The 42-year-old Lopez − known as "Tio," or uncle, by everyone on the farm, including his own 18-year-old son, who also works there − said workers have regular meetings with the boss, Dustin Machia.
"If something breaks we feel free to speak up," Lopez said. "If we need a washer and dryer fixed, we let the boss know. We can do that, because of Milk with Dignity."
Lopez worked on another Vermont dairy farm before Machia & Sons that was not part of the Milk with Dignity program.
"It was really different," he said. "I had fewer breaks. I only ever had six hours of rest between any shift. I worked throughout the week, making below the Vermont state minimum wage."
At Machia & Sons, Lopez said he makes $880 a week, and has five paid days of vacation, plus five sick days.
"That's really different than other farms, where if you don't work you don't get paid," he said.
Sheldon dairy farm owner values farmworkers, but not Milk with Dignity
Dustin Machia, 36, is the fifth-generation co-owner of the dairy farm in Sheldon where Tio works. While he agrees with Pinto's assessment of the importance of migrant workers, he does not share her enthusiasm for Milk with Dignity. His farm is one of the 32 farms in Vermont in the program, covering 234 "qualifying workers."
Machia said the only thing keeping him in the Milk with Dignity program is the money he gets from Ben & Jerry's for participating. He declined to say how much that is. Ben & Jerry's also declined to specify how much they pay farms in the Milk with Dignity program for their milk.
"If everyone got 10 grand, these guys wouldn't exist, because everyone would say, 'I don't need (the money) that bad,'" Machia said.
Machia has a laundry list of complaints against Milk with Dignity, from forcing him to have four workers in the milking parlor instead of three, to paying time and a half on holidays, instead of handing out bonuses on holidays, as his dad used to do.
"I could go on and on with different things that don't make sense they want you to do," Machia said. "At the end of the day, we would farm just the same without them people. They do me no good."
Vermont dairy industry would collapse without undocumented workers from Mexico and elsewhere
Machia acknowledges that his Large Farm Operation − milking about 1,400 cows on two farms − would collapse without the undocumented workers who milk the cows. The same goes for every large dairy farm in Vermont, he said. Walk into any milking parlor and you'll understand why.
"You aren't going to find Americans to do this kind of work any more, you're just not," Machia said. "(Migrant workers) are absolutely crucial to the ag industry. Not just in Vermont, clear across the country, absolutely. If they took all these migrants out of the ag sector and sent them back home, people would get hungry quick, and pay a lot more (for food), absolutely."
Machia & Sons has been selling milk to Ben & Jerry's since 2012. Then Migrant Justice showed up, Machia said.
"Migrant Justice knocked on Ben & Jerry's doors, saying, 'Hey we want to jump in here and have a gate between you guys selling the milk and the workers on the farm making it,'" he said. "'You guys are making money, the farms are making money and (the workers) are sleeping on hay bales. It ain't fair.' That was the outlook all the farms got. We mistreat our guys, don't pay them nothing, they're getting bit by rats, that was kind of their model going into this, which weren't true."
Machia admits there are "a few bad eggs out there," among dairy farm owners, but insists they aren't the majority. Everyone understands how important migrant workers are, he said.
"That's why you got to take care of them, because at the end of the day, if you don't, you don't have anyone to milk your cows and you haven't got a business," Machia said. "It's that simple."
Contact Dan D’Ambrosio at 660-1841 or ddambrosio@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanDambrosioVT.
This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Migrant Justice has failed to enlist Hannaford in its program to protect farmworkers. Why?
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