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The Wine Industry Equity Pledge (WINE Pledge)

Version III - Published July 2021

The WINE Pledge is growing and evolving document, and the result of the hard work of a passionate group of professionals building on the foundation of  previous versions. For LEGEND, the WINE Pledge is a growing community centered on effecting positive, lasting change across all facets of the wine industry. It accepts you as you are, and teaches while holding accountable. When in community, we learn from each other, hold each other up, and accomplish things we could never do alone. 

The following is taken from the WINE Pledge itself. For further resources, source documents, and to sign the pledge please visit www.winepledge.com.

Introduction

This is the third version of the Wine Industry Equity and Justice Pledge. Always intended to be a living document, this iteration includes and expands on current concerns facing our industry and society surrounding equity, fairness, belonging, social and environmental justice, and the regeneration of natural ecologies. White supremacy, male dominance, and heterosexism play out in specific ways in every sector of our field, creating discrimination and bias towards multiple communities: Black, Indigenous, Brown, Asian and people of Middle Eastern heritage, women, trans, and non-binary genders and the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants, migrant workers, people over 40, differently abled, and formerly incarcerated individuals. 

We cannot ignore the systemic racial inequities and lack of concern for Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, and Pacific Islander lives – underscored by the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing police murders and violence directed towards BIPOC and AAPI. The American wine industry was built on stolen land with forced and exploited labor. This is true in other countries as well. Wine professionals throughout the world must grapple with how targeted groups and people were harmed as it grew into an international industry. We must acknowledge this history and do our part to right the past wrongs, ensure brave and safe workspaces, amplify the voices of marginalized communities, and create an equitable foundation for the future. It is the right of all who work in the wine industry to thrive and make a livelihood in an empowering environment free of discrimination, assault, bullying, and other harmful behaviors. 

This Pledge is an aspirational document that will be accompanied by measures of accountability. People are human and make mistakes. There is grace along this pathway and room for everyone to learn as part of a community that will hold each other accountable. However, significant breaches may result in having your name removed from the pledge. 

Why sign this Pledge? 

Signing this Pledge is a first step that makes you part of a community where we will hold each other accountable safely and respectfully and contribute to and learn from one another. It shows your commitment to equity, fairness, and fighting discrimination and justice in the wine industry. 

Signing the Pledge requires a one-hour review session and a request to provide accountability that lets the public know you are taking meaningful action.  As you will be required to go through a review session and asked to provide accountability, the public will know you are taking meaningful action. Adding your name or that of your business will set an example for others, both in and outside the wine industry. There are many pressing issues facing our world right now, and it might seem overwhelming, but in the wine industry, you can have an impact.

Click here to visit the WINE Pledge Glossary – Defining Shared Vocabulary

The Pledge

As individual wine professionals or business signatories, we commit to:

  • Promoting zero tolerance for discrimination or harassment of any kind. The commitments and definitions herein promote the creation and strengthening of workspaces that uphold equitable treatment for all people – regardless of their various identities and positionalities. This includes race, gender identity, sexual orientation and identity, age, ability, ethnicity, culture, immigration status, class position and economic background, past incarceration, and religious beliefs in all wine business workplaces. The Pledge further promotes but is not limited to ending the resulting inequities in pay, hiring practices, incidents of sexual harassment, and bullying.
  • Acknowledging that the history of working individuals in the wine industry has included discrimination and behaviors most of us would condemn and that this has impacted careers, making the path to success more difficult for some than for others in its creation of consistent barriers to employment, business opportunities, and belonging. Acknowledging that, on the whole, our industry’s history has been grounded in structural white supremacy, colonialism, and heterosexism.
  • Calling for individuals to understand their privilege and to commit, as wine professionals, to sharing privilege-derived assets with those not favored by the systems that shaped our industry. To work to create lasting changes across the wine industry’s institutions, practices, policies, and attitudes that will make it a safer and more equitable space for all. 
  • Marking the beginning of a new way of doing business that prioritizes workers’ rights, uplifts marginalized communities, addresses intersectional oppression, supports regenerative and progressive environmental policies, and most of all, equity. This is a movement to dismantle white, heteropatriarchal structures within the wine industry.

     

    All who sign this Pledge agree to do our part in creating equitable, anti-racist, and brave spaces in our work lives. Signing this Pledge is just a first step, making you part of a community where we will hold each other accountable in a safe and respectful manner, where we contribute to and learn from one another. As individuals and as a community, our work will always be ongoing. We are both working towards an industry that reflects our values and one that lays the groundwork for future generations of wine professionals to encounter and uphold equity, justice, and belonging.

 

FOR MORE INFORMATION, AND TO SIGN THE PLEDGE VISIT WINEPLEDGE.COM