(Above: Javier Morejón Morejon, Anacairo Castillo López, Luis González Rodriguez, Fidel Corrales Guzmán - all sugar farmers in Bermejal, Cuba)

This International Workers' Day, Fairtrade America stands with the smallholder workers across the globe in celebration of working class pride and labor rights. Through our model, Fairtrade supports smallholder workers who grow products like sugar to protect their human rights and gather the resources they need to thrive. 

Labor organizing has a strong history in the international sugar industry. That history stems from exploitation on plantations across the Americas that were worked by enslaved Africans and indigenous people, to organized labor actions in the 20th century that demanded better treatment for sugar workers. The Hawaiian Sugar Strike of 1946 was one of the largest and most expensive in history, in which tens of thousands of workers came together across ethnic and cultural lines. Their demands included wage increases, a right to organize, and fair access to community infrastructure like healthcare and education. These demands set the stage for the Fairtrade movement across the world. The same year as the Hawaiian Sugar Strike, Edna Ruth Byler, a volunteer for the Mennonite Central Committee and now considered the mother of the modern Fair Trade movement, began marketing handicrafts made by Puerto Rican women. Byler focused on providing options to consumers that were free of exploitation. This eventually evolved into the creation of the Fairtrade label in 1989 as a way for consumers to identify products that were sourced with worker’s livelihoods in mind.  

Roughly 40% of the world's sugar is produced by smallholder farmers. Fairtrade works with tens of thousands of these farmers globally to support better farming practices and fairer pay. Through programs such as the Better Labor Practices Program, Fairtrade provides protections against human rights violations. Beyond certification, Fairtrade also implements programs that support sugar farmers’ and workers’ livelihoods. For example, in 2025 Fairtrade launched a Zero Hunger project in Malawi led by Fairtrade Italy and Fairtrade Africa with funding from the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation. This program aims to support food security and nutrition within sugar farming communities in the Chikwawa and Nkhotakota districts in Malawi. Specifically, the program provides education and resources encouraging farmers to grow healthy edible crops for local use alongside their cash crops like sugarcane to improve nutrition and income diversification. This program also includes support for infrastructure improvements such as clean drinking water and environmentally friendly cooking technologies, as well as promoting entrepreneurship and business skills so farmers can create new opportunities for themselves. 

On this International Workers' Day, Fairtrade recognizes the legacy of workers and organizers who came before. We understand that it is our responsibility to continue not only advocating for better labor conditions, but to step in and provide direct support as well.