“For decades now, migrant workers have created innovative labor organizing models outside of federal labor law, successfully increasing wages, benefits, and working conditions for segments of the working class that Londoño said have historically been deemed “unorganizable.” Worker centers, community unions, the Fair Food Program, the Milk with Dignity program, and the new Blue Ribbon Commission (BRC) on Protections for Immigrant Workers are in many ways migrant-led responses to one horrifying fact succinctly stated in a BRC report: “Many workers on the frontline of every major industry in this country are effectively exempt from any labor protections…

Some of the most innovative labor organizing in the nation has been happening in the agricultural industry. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a worker-based human rights organization, pioneered the design and development of the worker-driven social responsibility (WSR) paradigm, a worker-led, market-enforced approach to the protection of human rights in corporate supply chains…

Workers like Rosa say they are invested in “real change” because there are too many loopholes that allow employers to remain unaccountable for unsafe work conditions. Rosa, who is using a pseudonym, is a worker leader in Migrant Justice and a member of the Milk With Dignity program’s coordinating committee. She spoke with Prism last year after a long work day on a dairy farm in Vermont, where she has lived since migrating to the U.S. from Chiapas, Mexico, over 10 years ago.

As of 2019, the Milk with Dignity program is fully operational in Ben & Jerry’s northeast dairy supply chain, covering 100% of the company’s dairy volume—not to mention 64 dairy farms in Vermont and New York. Rosa said these wins empower other migrant workers to join the workers’ rights movement.

“Many people are afraid to speak out because of retaliation or they are afraid to lose their jobs, but I tell these people silence isn’t an option because the powerful already want to pretend we don’t exist. They don’t want to recognize that our community is here, and we deserve respect and dignity for doing this hard work. I had to learn to lose my fear, and that’s really what I help people in my community do. I help them lose their fear and get the information and education I’ve had so that we can all speak up and be stronger together,” Rosa said.”