(update 6 April: changed point of time Zaandam)
The International Institute for Social Studies (part of Erasmus University Rotterdam) invites to a meeting on the struggle for a better position of migrant farm workers in the US and the Netherlands. It is about their rights, housing and wages. But also about the role of large buyers of agricultural products such as the supermarket chains Albert Heijn (NL) and Hannaford (Northeast US), both part of the multinational Ahold Delhaize.
Special guests on this evening are activists from the American Migrant Justice. They support and represent migrants working under poor conditions in dairy farms in the US states of Vermont and New York.
The following day (April 9) Migrant Justice will present the Milk with Dignity package of demands to Ahold’s board and shareholders, who will then hold their annual meeting in Zaandam. On site there will also be a picket line in which everyone can participate. Migrant Justice wants Ahold to use its position as an important buyer to commit to improve the human rights situation in the US dairy farms. The aim is to make it clear to Ahold that as a buyer it is mainly responsible for the human rights situation in the US dairy farms.
April 8: The Hague from 6 to 8 p.m. (Kortenaerkade 12). Organization: the International Institute for Social Studies in cooperation with the Agroecological Network.
April 9: Zaandam from 12 noon till 3 p.m. (next to the Zaantheater, Nicolaasstraat 3, 1506 BB Zaandam).
Background information:
– Weaving a network for migrant and ecological justice in Dutch agriculture
– Looking inside the Dutch greenhouse
– Migrant farmworkers’ struggles for decent work and housing – Netherlands and US compared
