This past summer marked the hottest season on record in the United States, yet most workers in agricultural fields, greenhouses, and unconditioned indoor facilities lack adequate heat protections despite growing health risks from climate change. Lucas Benitez, who began working in tomato fields in Florida at age 16 and co-founded the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in the early 1990s, has helped establish one of the country’s strongest heat protection programs through the organization’s fair food initiative.
The fair food program operates through what academics describe as “market-based enforcement,” targeting the reputations of major brand-name retailers to improve working conditions rather than focusing on smaller supply chain entities. Participating farms agree to comply with worker protection codes in exchange for premium pricing and preferred status, creating incentives for compliance without relying on government regulators. The model has proven effective after years of boycotts, hunger strikes, and protests against food corporations. Other labor organizations now replicate this approach across industries including dairy production, construction, sugarcane farming, and banana production internationally.
Florida produces approximately 70% of indoor plants sold in the United States, with workers exposed to temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit this summer. Recent deaths and hospitalizations highlight the dangers: a 24-year-old died from heat exposure while harvesting sweet potatoes in Mississippi in September, while another farmworker collapsed fatally on his first day in an Immokalee tomato field. Texas hospitals report increasing cases of kidney disease among outdoor workers, potentially linked to prolonged heat exposure.
Efforts to secure heat protections through state and federal channels have stalled. WeCount, a south Florida human rights organization, initially pursued state-level legislation that repeatedly died in committee. The organization later obtained support from Miami-Dade County commissioners for a 19-page local ordinance with enforcement provisions including monetary penalties, paid rest breaks, and water access when heat index reaches 90 degrees Fahrenheit. However, the Florida state legislature pre-emptively blocked local heat protection efforts through new state law. Proposed federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards written under the Biden administration remain stalled, while separate legislation would block their implementation.
In response, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers recently expanded its fair food program standards to require electrolyte access year-round on participating farms, building upon existing requirements for shade, cool water, paid rest breaks, heat illness training, and medical attention protections without retaliation.
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