Farm Labor Issues
Agricultural labor issues in America span hundreds of different crops, virtually every state, and thousands of corporations – some very big, many very small. The issues are complex and are inextricably bound to national debates over labor laws, workplace safety, immigration policy and a host of other issues.
No one company, industry or state can resolve these issues alone. But because these issues impact our supply chain, they are of great interest and importance to R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.
R.J. Reynolds doesn’t employ farm workers or grow its own tobacco. Because they are not our employees, we have no direct control over the sourcing of farm laborers, their training, their pay rates, or their housing and access to human services. But we can – and do -- bring significant efforts to bear to ensure that our suppliers have the training and resources they need to do the right thing for the people who play an important contributory role in our supply chain. Significant efforts are already underway, and we are committed to continuing to play an appropriate role in this process.
Over the years, R.J. Reynolds has worked actively to assess conditions on the farms that supply our tobacco. We have taken constructive steps to help these farmers provide their laborers with safe working conditions and humane living conditions. These efforts are ongoing, and they involve both our own initiatives and cooperative efforts with others. We believe we have made a significant contribution to progress on these issues.
What does that look like? On a practical basis, it takes several forms:
- Setting clear contractual requirements and expectations;
- Providing resources for training and record-keeping to assist small business people and encourage consistency across farms;
- Auditing farms to not only ensure compliance with good agricultural practices, but also to address problems that are identified and work toward continuous improvement; and
- Working to establish, and actively participate in, a multilateral council that brings a variety of affected stakeholders to the table to work on the broader issues that have the potential to impact far more than just the farms with whom R.J. Reynolds contracts.
Contractual requirements set clear expectations
R.J. Reynolds’ contracts with farmers require them to abide by all local, state and federal laws.
We work cooperatively with these farmers to help them meet or exceed regulatory requirements. This takes the form of relatively simple things like working with them to ensure the required Occupational and Safely Health Administration and Fair Labor Standards posters are on display. But it also extends to commitments like our long-running sponsorship of the N.C. Department of Labor’s Gold Star Program, which recognizes growers who outperform their peers on worker housing standards.
Growers with whom R.J. Reynolds contracts know that the company expects the bar to be set high, and they have an excellent track record of meeting those expectations.
Training and resources facilitate compliance and improvement
R.J. Reynolds has long provided training materials for farmers and their employees on key issues related to workplace safety and proper use of equipment and agrochemicals. In recent years, the company has provided a much more structured and intensive training program. Participation by growers is required as a condition of their contracts with R.J. Reynolds.
In both 2011 and 2012, contracted growers were required by R.J. Reynolds to participate in a training protocol before the company would purchase any tobacco from them. The Cooperative Extension Services in tobacco-growing states participated with the company in these training sessions, which included education on:
- Safety training on heat stress, green tobacco sickness, and proper use of farm equipment and personal protective equipment;
- State and federal employment regulations on hiring practices, wages and hours;
- Restrictions on the use of minors in the workplace;
- Workers’ compensation insurance;
- Housing inspection requirements;
- Product track-and-trace requirements.
To help farmers standardize and document their practices, in the first quarter of 2012 R.J. Reynolds provided a “Good Agricultural Practices Record Book” to each of them. The Record Book takes growers step-by-step through the nature and timing of a range of requirements – including worker safety training, environmental protection, soil and water conservation planning, pest and agrochemical management, labor information resources and other topics. Grower feedback to this organized approach to documentation and record-keeping has been very positive.
For several years, the company also has conducted additional training initiatives with a range of public partners to augment its own efforts. In 2011, for example, the N.C. Department of Labor, the U.S. Department of Labor and the Green County, N.C., Health Department partnered with R.J. Reynolds to provide farm safety training to more than 380 workers and 67 tobacco growers from six counties. Plans are underway for a similar program in another North Carolina county in 2012.
As a matter of practice, the company also provides growers with training materials in both English and Spanish, including DVDs on hazardous materials, adequate housing requirements, pesticide safety, heat stress, farm equipment safety and green tobacco sickness. The availability of these free materials to all R.J. Reynolds’ contracted growers makes it convenient for them to train workers not only at the beginning of a season but throughout the growing cycle as their needs dictate.
Providing their workers with proper education, safety policies, housing provisions and wages is important to R.J. Reynolds’ contract growers. Not only does the company make it clear to the growers that this is our expectation, but on a practical basis, it also contributes to the growers’ ability to hire many of the same workers year after year, which is common among the farms with whom the company contracts.
Farm audits provide direction for continuous improvement
In 2011, R.J. Reynolds contracted with Underwriters Laboratories' Responsible Sourcing, a respected outside auditor with experience in workplace and agronomic practices, to examine general labor conditions and the use of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) on a sample of N.C. farms that supply R.J. Reynolds.
About one-third of the N.C. growers with whom R.J. Reynolds contracts were included in the 2011 audit. In total, 254 interviews with workers were conducted. Overall, the audit findings were very encouraging. Two major themes emerged from the findings: workers are satisfied that they are being treated fairly; and growers are providing with safety and agronomic training, but record-keeping is not always up to date.
Some of the audit’s key findings and recommendations include:
- 100 percent of the growers visited maintain “good and safe working conditions for their workers”;
- 99 percent of workers interviewed reported being treated fairly;
- About 98 percent of workers interviewed said they would return to the same farm to work in the future;
- 85 percent of growers visited provided documented health and safety training to workers;
- 95 percent of workers who handle agrochemicals had personal protective equipment (e.g., gloves, eyewear, footwear, dust masks); in most situations where the employer is not providing the equipment, the workers owned their own equipment;
- 99 percent of audited growers displayed the required Occupational and Safety Health Administration (OSHA) poster;
- 98 percent had the Poster of Fair Labor Standards Act posted; and
- 252 of the 254 workers interviewed reported receiving the minimum wage or above. (The auditors noted in their report that since the assessment was conducted, R.J. Reynolds has verified that the two workers who reported being paid less than the minimum wage had, indeed, been paid at or above that standard.)
For a copy of the farm audit, please write to the Vice President of Corporate Sustainability and Commercial Equity, RAI Services Co., P.O. Box 464, Winston-Salem, NC, 27102.
These farm audits confirmed that growers who supply R.J. Reynolds with tobacco are working to comply with all laws and regulations and foster a safe working environment. But there is always room to improve, and the auditors made several recommendations in that regard. R.J. Reynolds has already taken steps to help contracted growers take action on the auditors’ recommendations.
For example, among the auditors’ recommendations for continuous improvement were suggestions that the growers would benefit from having standardized forms to maintain accurate farm records and document health and safety training. In response to that, R.J. Reynolds created and provided each grower with a comprehensive “Good Agricultural Practices Record Book,” complete with forms, checklists, tabbed sections by topics and calendars.
Other recommendations included providing information to growers about worker documentation requirements, and information on the benefits of track-and-trace methodology. As a result, those topics were incorporated into the 2012 grower training sessions.
The 2011 farm audits provided valuable baseline benchmarking information to R.J. Reynolds and to our contracted growers. R.J. Reynolds will use this information to enhance its audit program going forward.
On the participating farms, the auditors’ view that “good and safe” working conditions were the norm was confirmation that all the efforts those farmers have undertaken are making a difference. R.J. Reynolds remains committed to providing appropriate support for its contracted growers’ efforts to comply with the letter and spirit of applicable laws relating to their workforce.
Multilateral group on farm labor issues creates a forum for sharing ideas and developing constructive solutions
In 2011, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco committed to participate in the creation of a properly constituted, multilateral group to promote farm-worker safety and improved working conditions on tobacco farms. This will be a forum for parties involved in farm labor issues to address the problems, share experiences and program efforts, and listen and learn from each other.
Much progress has been made in identifying the wide range of stakeholders who have a perspective on these issues, and gauging their willingness to participate in such a group. The Keystone Center, an experienced facilitator of multilateral dialogues, has been selected to convene and conduct the group's meetings, and an initial meeting of the group was held in April 2012.
This meeting was an important beginning. The right forum, with the right parties involved, offers the promise of arriving at constructive solutions.
As alluded to earlier, the issues around the demand for seasonal workforces needed by American agribusiness are extraordinarily complex, and even a multilateral group with interests in just the production of tobacco leaf cannot reasonably be expected to resolve all problems across crops, across geographies, and across all industry sectors.
That said, we are committed to working collaboratively with the newly formed group to continue to identify ways to strengthen and improve conditions for farm laborers.
Conclusion: We are committed
R.J. Reynolds remains fully committed to efforts to foster safe and humane farm working environments.
We believe that our efforts to date have produced positive results, and that even more will be realized through our future efforts. We will continue to seek ways to give farmers the tools they need to track and document conditions on their farms.
We plan to continue farm audits of additional contract growers and take action in response to specific recommendations from the expert auditors.
Most of all, through the multilateral group, we will continue to listen to the stakeholders involved and work cooperatively to find answers. Where farm labor issues are involved, R.J. Reynolds is firmly committed to finding constructive solutions.
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company
March 2012