How Businesses Can Create Equity, Justice and Combat Racism in the Wine Industry
GIVING BACK AND GIVING UP
Donate at least one percent of business profits to One Percent for the Planet, organizations that benefit BIPOC, AAPI, or environmental groups.
Create mentorship opportunities based on respect and mutual learning.
Use your privileges to give others access to financial, social, and cultural capital.
Practice Step Up / Step Down if you feel like you’re receiving more opportunities than people and businesses with less privileged status.
Share knowledge with all staff members and allow them to taste wines you make or participate in tastings with distributors and winemakers.
EQUITY
Pay a Living Wage.
Provide free or low-cost healthcare coverage for ALL workers, including seasonal labor.
Provide equity with bonuses, commission, or profit-sharing.
Provide paid sick days and personal days to ALL workers.
ANTI-BULLYING
Use social media to support colleagues and workers.. Refrain from name-calling, spreading gossip, falsehoods or rumors, discussing personal lives, and other retaliatory behaviors on-line or based on online content.
Call-In instead of calling out. Cancel other wine professionals only in extreme cases such as sexual assault, unrepentant hate speech, and unaddressed discriminatory hiring practices.
Support whistleblowers who call out inequities in the wine industry.
Support wrongfully terminated workers.
Use your power and privilege to empower and create opportunities for colleagues. DO NOT manipulate, strong arm, or harm the careers or reputations of other wine industry professionals.
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND PRESERVATION
Buy from growers who employ natural farming methods or are transitioning to regenerative agriculture.
Plant and farm vineyards without the use of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, or any synthetic chemicals. Specifically, NOT USING GLYPHOSATE.
Minimize water usage and using grey (recycled water) whenever possible.
Share vineyard land with Indigenous farmers at no cost.
Be mindful of environmental impact on local communities in rural and urban areas.
BECOME AN ACCOMPLICE/ADVOCATE
Do not call ICE or the police when there is a possibility of causing harm. Black/Brown/Indigenous people are disproportionately impacted by government and police violence.
Do not call ICE or the police when there is a dispute that might involve an undocumented worker.
Be mindful of residents if you own or run a business in a gentrified/gentrifying area.
Speak up, seek support or ask for help when witnessing, experiencing, or suspecting any form of harassment, assault, or discrimination against other wine professionals or customers. Your silence may enable an abusive situation.
Promote inclusivity and centering of individuals in underrepresented groups who wouldn’t otherwise be the focal point.
Increase education about better hiring practices..
Train staff on etiquette when dealing with someone with a disability.
Train staff on restaurant and/or workplace accessibility.
Find strengths in disabled workers and build upon that.
Provide sign language training for staff to communicate better with hearing-impaired customers and workers.
Engage Custodianship: The indigenous principle of “responsibility taking” by caring for the land and community you operate in as if its well-being is your personal responsibility.
Acknowledge traditional or Indigenous land in meaningful ways while structuring employee and customer policies, engaging vendors and operating facilities in ways that build healthy relationships with each other and with Nature.
Support no-questions-asked healthcare (including reproductive health and mental health) for all employees
BUSINESS PRACTICES
Foster diversity in your role as owner, manager, or supervisor through hiring practices. All people benefit when wine industry spaces are diverse in race, gender identity, age, ability, ethnicity, culture, immigration status, sexual orientation and identity, class position and economic background, work experience, and religious belief and affiliation.
Create and inclusive culture so that Black, Indigenous, Brown and Asian people, women, trans, and non-binary genders and the LGBTQ+ community, people over 40, immigrants, migrant workers, differently-abled and formerly incarcerated individuals feel a sense of belonging.
Foster leadership amongst directly oppressed and impacted groups through mentorship, recruiting, and equity.
Communicate your business's anti-racist, anti-discrimination, anti-ageist, anti-classist, and anti-harassment policies and protocol clearly and in writing to workers, partners, and associates at the outset of any professional relationship.
Allocate resources, education, and opportunities amongst all staff, regardless of their job or socio-economic background.
Invest in and encourage the promotion of employees from directly oppressed and impacted groups before filling positions from outside sources. Create mechanisms for workplace advancement, regardless of department or position.
Do not ask job applicants if they have been convicted of a crime or use background checks on past criminal or financial history.
Create gender parity in your workspace within six months of signing this Pledge.
Create mechanisms and/or designate persons in your workplace to provide support when needed, allowing people to raise their concerns without fear of retaliation. Listen and respond in a way that safeguards the position of those speaking up.
Commit to a healthy workplace by providing education and language on alcohol abuse, allowing a safe space to talk about mental and physical health, writing schedules that prioritize breaks within and rest between shifts, and providing or facilitating access to healthy foods. Work to provide access to affordable healthcare through insurance and/or healthcare providers.
Give space, including paid time off, to workers who are grieving or experiencing personal or collective trauma stemming from police executions, hate crimes, sexual assault, and other forms of physical and emotional violence.
No workers will be terminated for taking time to exercise their reproductive choice.
Look to hire people with experience and do not assume they will not take a job because they are overqualified or want more compensation than younger workers. Multigenerational workspaces benefit workers and customers.
Do not seat customers over 40 in places that are less visible to onlookers or other customers.
Commit to doing business with companies and individuals that do not engage in discriminatory or abusive conduct, including:
Hate speech as defined by the UN Strategy and Plan on Hate Speech. (Any kind of communication in speech, writing or behavior, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language regarding a person or a group based on who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, color, descent, gender or other identity factors).
Sexually assaulting or harassing other industry professionals or consumers in any professional space.
Cover-up, keep quiet, or “handle internally” any form of discriminatory or abusive conduct.
Mistreating or discriminating against their workers or customers based on race, gender identity, age, ability, ethnicity, culture, immigration status, sexual orientation and identity, class position and economic background, and religious belief and affiliation. Not only are these being antithetical to our values as wine professionals, but they are also illegal as inscribed in:
Foster partnerships and relationships with other businesses that adopt and enforce this Pledge.
Make your place of business accessible to disabled workers and customers by:
Posting signs in braille.
Posting QR codes on menus.
Using Automated Website Accessibility Solutions for ADA & WCAG Compliance
Having ADA-compliant bars and dining and bar tables throughout on-premises wine spaces, not separate from other customers.
Providing adaptive flatware for people with limited upper mobility.
Having straws available for customers/workers with limited hand function.
Building ADA-compliant restrooms.
Making aisles wider.
Make wine travel accessible to people with mobility and other disabilities.
Buying from growers and farmers who employ Regenerative Farming methods.
Minimizing water usage. Prioritize recycled and reclaimed water sources.
Carbon Footprint accountability and contribution to carbon drawdown beginning with basic business practices to reduce waste and carbon footprint such as:
Bulk packaging like kegs and bag-in-box formats
Use cans in place of bottles where applicable
Eliminating single-use products
Institute a compost program in partnership with local farms
Minimizing a business’ ecological impact in rural and urban areas by assessing and setting zero-waste goals such as:
Shared sustainable purchasing
Employing alternatives to selling bottled water
Planting and farming vineyards without the use of synthetic chemicals (fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides &, fungicides) or systemic chemicals, like the herbicide glyphosate. Ending the use of synthetics and systemics also improves human and soil health in downstream communities by reducing groundwater contamination.
Carbon Farming. Work to improve soil integrity, vine health, biodiversity and climate stability while minimizing disease pressures, compaction and input costs by planting rather than plowing the land.
