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On the behalf of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Metro students approached the Student Advisory Committee of the Auraria Board to encourage support of a campaign to increase the price of tomatoes in order to provide workers with a living wage. SACAB is composed of students from UC Denver, Metro, and the Community College of Denver.
SACAB representatives Carl McEnroe and Andrew Pattison have expressed support for the endorsement. According to Pattison, if Sodexo—Auraria campus’ food provider—were to increase the price of tomatoes by 1 cent, this would provide workers with a liveable wage. However, student body president Jack Kroll has yet to endorse the efforts of the Coalition.
According to Kroll, who is an economics major at UCD, it would not be wise for the SGA to make a motion to support or condemn the efforts of the Coalition “without more numbers.”
While explaining that the difference of 1 cent per pound of tomatoes is “a lot more than sometimes what people think it is,” he said that Sodexo is not just the food provider of Auraria campus, but also a multinational corporation that specializes in outsourcing.
According to a 2008 press release, Sodexo “has been named number four overall among the world’s leading outsourcing services companies on the Global Outsourcing 100 list.
“Sodexo is all over the place. On the base level, 1 cent seems like a great idea, but without seeing the numbers, I’m not comfortable to say whether or not it would adversely affect [the workers],” said Kroll. “You’re talking about a lot of money if Sodexo is buying a lot of tomatoes. Then you’re talking about people losing their jobs, which could be worse: One person loses their job, while another has a better standard of living.”
According to a Coalition press release, the group is a “membership-led farm worker organization of mostly Latino, Haitian, and Mayan Indian immigrants working in low-wage jobs throughout the state of Florida.”
In 2001, the organization led a successful campaign against Taco Bell that resulted in Taco Bell agreeing to increase to “100 percent transparency” when it comes to tomato purchasing in Florida, as well as respecting the basic human rights of the workers and paying them a living wage. However, as the Coalition noted, the campaign did not successfully include the “penny per pound” increase.
“It’s not all rainbows and sunshine,” Kroll said. “I think people on the base think that it is. But if they’re not buying a whole lot of tomatoes and it would just be cutting into [Sodexo’s] profit margin, then from a moral standpoint, I don’t see why to not support it.”
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