Mike Rios

Mike Rios directs the Fair Food Standards Council, which monitors and enforces groundbreaking agreements between agricultural workers, growers, and corporate buyers of produce to ensure fundamental human rights for workers in agriculture. The Fair Food Program has been recognized by the White House, the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights, numerous international human rights organizations – including Anti-Slavery International of London – the Harvard Business Review and CNN International’s Freedom Project, as one of the “most successful and innovative programs” in the world today, to uncover and prevent modern-day slavery. In 2024, the United States Department of Agriculture called the Fair Food Program the “platinum level in human rights protections for agricultural workers.” FFSC enforces a Fair Food Code of Conduct, whose zero-tolerance provisions for human trafficking and sexual violence are backed by strong market consequences.

Mike is the former Southeast Regional Enforcement Coordinator for agricultural investigations at the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. During his 27-year career at DOL, Mike served 13 years as a field investigator at the Tampa District Office and three years as Senior Investigative Advisor for the S.E Region. He spent his last 11 years with the Division as Enforcement Coordinator, covering eight states and 10 District Offices across the Southeast. Among his duties as Coordinator, Mike led strategic investigative planning, provided training and support to Wage and Hour Investigators, served as subject matter expert on agricultural worker protection regulations, reviewed investigation files for quality and litigation readiness, and established collaborative partnerships with sister enforcement agencies and civil society organizations. With the rise of the H-2A guest worker visa program, Mike collaborated extensively with Fraud Prevention Units at U.S. Consulates in Mexico and helped lead enforcement efforts with the U.S. State Department, DOL’s Office of Inspection General, Homeland Security Investigations, and the FBI to combat labor trafficking and forced labor in the agricultural industry.

Mike also supported international enforcement and investigator training efforts in Puerto Rico, Paraguay, Honduras, and Panama. In 2014, Mike represented DOL at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland during a Business and Human Rights Forum on how government, civil society, and private industry can collaborate to provide workers with proper access to remedy.

Mike joined the Fair Food Standards Council in February 2024.