Tuesday, February 13th, 2007
From the Student/Farmworker Alliance:
Excitement builds for Chicago mobilizations – Get on the Bus!
2007 McDonald’s Truth Tour and major Chicago mobilizations quickly approaching!
Feb. 1, 2007 - In recent years, many of us have climbed into cars, vans and buses to go to anti-war marches, global justice summits, and movement conferences.
The time has come, once again, for another such caravan of justice, this one leading from all points of the country to the Windy City, Chicago – home of fast-food giant McDonald’s. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers has called two days of historic mobilization for farmworker justice in the Golden Arches’ backyard capping off this year’s Truth Tour.
The Campaign for Fair Food – demanding that McDonald’s take responsibility for the decades of grinding poverty and degradation in its tomato supply chain – is quickly hurtling toward a decisive turning point. Farmworkers from Immokalee and their allies are going up against one of the world’s largest corporations to demand the dignity of workers and consumers alike. Will you be there?
Just this week, long-time McDonald’s supplier Ag-Mart was in the news yet again, this time for allegedly failing to pay tomato pickers minimum wage. How much longer will McDonald’s keep its head in the sand while the fiction of social responsibility in its tomato suppliers’ fields continues to crumble around it? The answer, in part, lies in your hands.
This April, join us for a pivotal and historic convergence. For two years, we’ve been patient while McD’s stalled. Now is it’s time to show our collective strength and turn out the largest possible numbers in Chicago. Keep reading for resources and ideas on how to mobilize your community to come to Chicago: More…
Tuesday, February 13th, 2007
Please join the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) for a press conference at Burger King’s corporate headquarters this Thursday, February 15th.
The press conference has been organized with two main objectives: 1) To denounce Burger King’s recent announcement that it does NOT intend to follow Taco Bell’s lead in improving the wages and working conditions of the workers who pick its tomatoes, and 2) To announce the launch of the Burger King Campaign for Truth, a campaign designed to hold Burger King executives accountable for the half-truths and fabrications used in justifying their refusal to address farmworker exploitation in the company’s supply chain. See below for background on this frustrating turn in our negotiations with Burger King.
CIW Burger King Press Conference
12:00 pm, Thursday, February 15th
Location: Burger King Corporate Headquarters
5505 Blue Lagoon Drive, Miami
( From 836, take Red Road/NW 57th Ave; Head towards Blue Lagoon Dr. We will have signs directing you to parking and the press conference). If possible, please carpool.
This press conference comes at a crucial moment: Two years have passed since we reached an historic agreement with Taco Bell and first challenged Burger King and the rest of the fast-food industry to follow Taco Bell’s lead in addressing the sub-poverty wages and inhumane working conditions of tomato pickers in its supply chain. Burger King has now squarely rejected this challenge. On Thursday, together, we will show Burger King that the Miami community stands with workers in Immokalee and will not rest until justice and dignity are won.
We need your support and hope you will join us. Please contact Sarah Osmer for more information 239-986-9101 or sarah@interfaithact.org.
- The Coalition of Immokalee Workers
Background:
After stringing workers in Immokalee along through a series of agonizingly slow talks — a tactic that goes by the clever name of “The Slow No” in the corporate management playbook — Burger King announced this week that it does NOT intend to follow Taco Bell’s lead in addressing farmworkers’ poverty wages and sweatshop working conditions.
You can find the full Burger King statement, and the CIW’s response, at the CIW website, at www.ciw-online.org , but here are some of the highlights:
* BK’s plan to eliminate farmworker poverty? That’s easy! Eliminate farmworkers by turning them into fast-food workers…
We’re serious. Burger King decided that funding a pay raise, as has Taco Bell, was not the best way to improve farmworker wages. Rather, BK offered to “send Burger King Corporation recruiters to the area to speak with the CIW and with workers themselves about permanent, full-time employment at BURGER KING(R) restaurants… and we are hopeful the CIW will accept our offer.” Beyond everything else wrong with this idea, who, exactly, would be left to pick Burger King’s tomatoes?
* BK’s estimate of farmworkers’ wages today? The statement chose to cite McDonald’s “study” of farmworker wages, which claims that tomato pickers earnings “ranged from $9.65 per hour for the slowest workers to a high of $18.27 per hour for the fastest.” However, that study has been thoroughly discredited by dozens of leading legal, labor, and social research scholars, including former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. Here’s just one evaluation of the report’s validity: “So riddled with errors both large and small that it cannot be accepted as factually accurate on virtually any measure… The report should have no credibility whatsoever.”
* BK’s reason it can’t manage to pay one penny more per pound and make that penny reach the pickers in the fields, as its competitor Taco Bell has done successfully for nearly two years now? “We do not identify the specific growers, tomatoes or workers who pick the tomatoes that are used in our restaurants.”
Oddly, this statement by Burger King directly contradicts what Burger King’s supply chain managers told CIW representatives during the year-and-a-half-long talks. They said that traceability should pose no obstacle to the penny per pound payment. It’s one of those “Were they telling the truth then, or are they telling the truth now?” situations. Hard to tell, but since Taco Bell’s supply chain is in fact very similar to Burger King’s, we suspect it’s more a question of will than of feasibility.
_____________________
Melody González
Student/Farmworker Alliance
Interfaith Action of Southwest Florida
239-986-0847
www.sfalliance.org
www.ciw-online.org
www.allianceforfairfood.org
Monday, February 5th, 2007
Join activists from around the city for our next planning meeting. Bring your ideas and energy, as we begin a new year of campaigning in solidarity with the farmworkers in Immokalee.Where: 339 Lafayette St. buzzer #11 NYC (corner of Bleecker & Lafayette Sts, by the 6 train Bleeker street station, one block north of Houston).
When: 6:30 pm, Thursday,February 8th
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Fair Food NYC is an independent group supporting the Coalition of the Immokalee Workers.
For more about their struggle, visit http://www.ciw-online.org.
Contact fairfoodnyc(at)gmail.com or visit http://www.fairfoodnyc.org for more information or to get involved.
Thursday, February 1st, 2007
F r o m C I W - O n l i n e . o r g
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers announces a major mobilization for farmworker justice, April 13-14, 2007, in the greater Chicago area. Make your plans to join us for historic actions that will usher in a new phase in the Campaign for Fair Food.
CIW: “Today, we are tired, in the words of Martin Luther King Jr., of ‘relying on the good will and understanding of those who profit by exploiting us.’”
Nearly two years have passed since Taco Bell and the CIW announced an historic initiative to address the ever-deepening poverty and decades of degradation faced by farmworkers in Florida. At that time, Taco Bell challenged its fast-food industry counterparts to join in demanding fair wages and humane treatment for the workers who pick their tomatoes.
McDonald’s, the undisputed leader of the $100 billion fast-food industry, has refused to meet that challenge. Despite increasing public pressure on the fast-food giant, McDonald’s has refused to recognize the seriousness of the exploitation of tomato pickers exposed through the Taco Bell boycott, and refused to work with the CIW to address that exploitation. Instead, it has taken measures that appear aimed at undermining the hard-won advances in wages and working conditions established in the agreement with Taco Bell.
Today, after nearly two years of waiting patiently for McDonald’s to join us in addressing the crisis of human rights abuses and sub-poverty wages in its tomato supply chain, we are tired of waiting. We are tired, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, of “relying on the good will and understanding of those who profit by exploiting us.”
Our members and allies feel that it is now time to intensify our efforts. As such, the campaign is entering a new phase this year, and support from our allies across the country will be more important than ever. The action in Chicago this April will mark the first major engagement in this new phase of the Campaign for Fair Food.
Mark your calendars today and start organizing to bring members of your community to McDonald’s backyard this April to join us in a:
- Major rally outside McDonald’s global headquarters in Oak Brook, IL, Friday, April 13, 2007.
- Carnaval and Parade for Fair Food, Real Rights, and Dignity - Saturday, April 14, 2007 in downtown Chicago.
We strongly encourage our allies from across the country to join us in Chicago this April and to participate in the colorful carnaval and parade action. Groups are encouraged to organize their own floats and delegations for this action. Contact workers@ciw-online.org for more info.
ALSO… Be sure to check out all the highlights from last year in the Campaign for Fair Food. Click here to see the extensive “2006 Year in Review” from the Student/Farmworker website.