Farm workers were leading a five-day, 45-mile (72-kilometer) trek on foot this week from one of the poorest communities in Florida to a mansion-lined, oceanfront town that is one of the richest in an effort to pressure retailers to leverage their purchasing power for better worker pay and working conditions.
The farm workers said they were marching to highlight the Fair Food Program, which has enlisted companies like McDonald's, Walmart, Taco Bell, and Whole Foods to use their clout with growers to ensure better working conditions and wages for farmworkers. They hoped to use the march to pressure other companies, like Publix, Wendy's, and Kroger, to join the program that started in 2011.
The march began Tuesday, March 14, from the farming community of Pahokee, one of the poorest in Florida, where the median household income is around $30,000. The march's launching point was a camp where farmworkers were coerced into working for barely any pay by a labor contractor who was convicted and sentenced last year to almost ten years in prison. The contractor confiscated the Mexican farmworkers' passports, demanded exorbitant fees from them, and threatened them with deportation or false arrest, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The marchers were on schedule to arrive Saturday, March 18, in the town of Palm Beach, which has a median household income of almost $169,000 and is lined with the mansions of the rich and famous, including billionaire Nelson Peltz, who is Wendy's chairman, and former President Donald Trump.
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