"Sum of Us" are getting tired of Trader Joe's foot dragging on Fair Food!

Online petition calling on Trader Joe's to sign Fair Food agreement latest indication that patience with "ethical grocer" is growing short among concerned consumers...

January 23, 2012 - Sum of Us, the "movement of consumers, workers and shareholders speaking with one voice to counterbalance the growing power of large corporations," has stepped into the ring in the battle to win Trader Joe's commitment to the Fair Food Program, and they've done so with a sharply-worded new online petition out today. Here's an excerpt:

"You know Trader Joe’s – the grocery chain that bills itself as an ethical alternative to the big-name stores? Well, it turns out they’re not so friendly to the workers who pick the tomatoes they sell to us.

Trader Joe’s CEO is refusing to sign the Fair Food Agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a group of farm workers in Florida who have successfully pressured corporate giants like Taco Bell and McDonald’s to agree to ensure that farm workers in their supply chains get treated humanely and get paid at least one penny more per pound of tomatoes they pick.

That’s right, we’re talking about just a couple of pennies more per pound of tomatoes — an insignificant cost increase for Trader Joe’s and its customers — could help thousands of farm workers get paid a fair wage. But Trader Joe’s is digging in its heels." read more

The webpage -- featured today at the top of the Sum of Us homepage -- then provides an electronic petition form that you can sign to express your support for the Fair Food movement to Trader Joe's CEO Dan Bane.

Online petitions like this one, and those housed at change.org, have quickly become a remarkably powerful tool for consumer organizing, with several important victories under their belt in the last year alone (Remember that Bank of America debit card fee? An onslaught of emails from outraged consumers turned that particular injustice back in record time!).

So visit the Sum of Us website today and add your voice to those reaching out to Mr. Bane, so that he may reconsider his company's inexplicable intransigence and support the Fair Food Program for farmworkers in the Florida tomato industry.