The Coalition of Immokalee Workers Uses Ensemble Storytelling Processes to Overcome Enslavement in Corporate Supply Chains

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) has successfully combated modern-day slavery by transforming the ways that over a dozen major brands, including Taco Bell, Subway, and Wal-Mart, manage their supply chains. The CIW's efforts over more than 20 years have effectively stopped enslavement practices, including abuses such as wage theft and peonage indebtedness. We conducted a field ethnography, interviews, and archival analyses to understand this success. We find that the CIW employs a decentered, egalitarian, and ensemble approach to their multiplicities of alliances by collectively animating themselves and their partners through ensemble leadership. This combination of alliances, along with worker-driven monitoring, brings life to the CIW motto We are all leaders. Translating this motto into daily practice is how the CIW virtually eradicates enslavement practices in corporate supply chains.

Automated summary

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) has effectively combated modern-day slavery by forming multiple alliances and implementing worker-driven monitoring practices, thereby eliminating abusive practices in corporate supply chains.