“We were not looking for experts, because we are experts in our field,” Reyes says. “And contrary to what many people and many experts said about farmworkers, we also have the wits that are necessary to be able to create what we created.”

The core philosophy behind the Fair Food Program is remarkably simple. The coalition sums it up as worker-driven social responsibility. Greg Asbed, the co-founder of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, says the model provides far more accountability than corporate social responsibility. Under those programs, companies will say they enforce labor standards by conducting audits, but they’ll only interview a small percentage of workers. The growers will also know that the auditors are coming, and can prepare workers for what to say. “The whole thing is essentially not just a snapshot, it’s a faked snapshot,” Asbed told the audience at the Aspen Institute.

Contrast that with the Fair Food Program. It includes an education component to ensure that workers know their rights. A well-outlined complaint system has consequences if growers retaliate against workers. The third-party audit system is required to conduct in-depth interviews with a large percentage of each farm’s workers. And it’s all held together by a legally-binding accountability apparatus. If the audit finds an issue at a farm, or a worker’s complaint goes unresolved, the grower could lose their status as a partner and forfeit their ability to sell to the retailers who have signed on to the agreement.

The worker-centric model is behind the success of the program, Reyes says. “Every worker, when they hear their rights and they know they are guaranteed, they will complain,” Reyes says. “For the first time, they saw how the abuses were fixed, and the people who reported them were not fired or beaten, as in the past.”

Reyes is also sure to note that the worker-driven model is about dignity, not charity. “Some people when we tell the story, they want to empty their garage and bring it to our doorsteps,” he says. “We talk to people and say yeah, that is nice, but what we need is justice. We don’t work 10 to 14 hours a day every day of the year that work is available and don’t wonder or don’t ask ourselves why is it that we still have to depend on people, goodwill, to put food on the table.”

Instead, Reyes calls for potential allies to join them in the fight. The group has expanded to include tomato farmworkers in other states, and now organize strawberry and pepper farms within Florida as well.

They’re also continuing the push to include more buyers in the Fair Food Program. Their current target: Wendy’s. The fast food company has opted to purchase tomatoes from Mexico instead of signing on to the worker-driven agreement. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers has decided to bring the fight to the doorstep of Wendy’s board chairman Nelson Peltz, with a five-day fast outside his Manhattan hedge fund office beginning on March 11.

The protest is specifically linked to the sexual violence women face in the tomato fields, a key issue for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. Their message: time’s up for corporate leaders like Peltz, who have the ability to sign on to agreements like the Fair Food Program, which have made a marked difference in reducing sexual violence for women workers.