For decades, Florida’s farmworkers faced poverty wages and daily violations of their basic rights in order to harvest the food on our plates, including sexual harassment, physical and verbal abuse, and in the most extreme cases, modern-day slavery.

The good news is that a new day has dawned in the fields through the CIW’s Fair Food Program (FFP), an historic partnership among farmworkers, Florida tomato growers, and 13 multibillion-dollar food retailers. The FFP guarantees rights never before seen for Florida farmworkers, such as rights to shade and rest breaks from their grueling work, and zero tolerance for sexual harassment and modern slavery. Since 2011, participating buyers have paid more than $15 million through the FFP, constituting the first pay increase for workers in over 30 years. Of the five largest fast food corporations in the country — Subway, McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, and Wendy’s — Wendy’s is the only one not participating in the FFP. Sustainable restaurant leader Chipotle Mexican Grill, and Walmart, the largest corporation in the world, also participate.

Despite the tremendous and widely celebrated gains of the FFP, Wendy’s has unconscionably turned its back on farmworkers and their allies with the empty claim that “[W]e pay a premium to our tomato suppliers in Florida, and expect them to take care of their employees. All of our Florida tomato suppliers participate in the Fair Food Program.”

The truth is, whatever premium Wendy’s may be paying is not the Fair Food Premium, it is not being monitored by the Fair Foods Standards Council (the third party monitoring body of the FFP), and it is not going to address farmworkers’ grinding poverty. Wendy’s statement that its suppliers belong to the Fair Food Program is both unverifiable and meaningless because Wendy’s, unlike its competitors in the Fair Food Program, does not have to, and does not, tell anyone who its tomato suppliers are. Nor does Wendy’s have to suspend its purchases from any participating grower found out of compliance with the Fair Food Code of Conduct. These are the dual linchpins that give the Program its teeth, and Wendy’s simply is not doing its part.