| Greg Asbed | |
| Birth Place: | Baltimore, Maryland |
| Known For: | Coalition of Immokalee Workers |
| Awards: | MacArthur Fellow |
Greg Asbed is an American activist, labor organizer, and human rights strategist. He is the co-founder of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a worker-based human rights organization based in Immokalee, Florida working to eradicate modern slavery in the Floridian agriculture industry. In 2017 Asbed was named a MacArthur Fellow for "transforming conditions for low-wage workers with a visionary model of worker-driven social responsibility."[1] [2]
Asbed is a first-generation Armenian American; his grandmother, Hripsimee, is survivor of the Armenian genocide who was forced into Syria. In a 2017 interview, Asbed connected this fact to his human rights work, stating "I have always felt a certain responsibility, as a bearer of DNA that was forged in the crucible of genocide, to the idea of universal human rights."[2]
Asbed was born in Baltimore and raised in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. His father immigrated to the United States from Kobane to study nuclear physics; his mother is a pediatrician at Johns Hopkins Hospital.[3]
Asbed attended the Landon School and enrolled at Brown University. At Brown he studied neuroscience, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in 1985.[3] After college he spent three years in Haiti where he learned Haitian Creole and became involved with a peasant movement.[2] Upon returning to the U.S., Asbed pursued graduate study at Johns Hopkins University, where he received a Master of Arts degree in 1990.[4]
See main article: Coalition of Immokalee Workers. After working with laborers in Pennsylvania and Maryland, Asbed and his wife moved to Immokalee, Florida in 1991.[2] Working with farmworkers, they established the Coalition of Immokalee Workers; at the time of its establishment, the group was one of the nation's first centers dedicated to aiding migrant workers.[5] At CIW, Asbed led the development of the Fair Food Program through which companies could pay a small premium for crop purchases in exchange for a commitment from growers to abide by a code of conduct relating to wages and working conditions; participating companies must agree to drop suppliers who violate the standards.[2] [6] As of 2017, 90% of tomato growers in Florida participate in the program.[7] The Fair Food Program has been hailed for its success in combating modern slavery in Southwest Florida and hailed as an exemplary paradigm for improving the rights of farmworkers.[6] [8] [7]