Wednesday, September 12th, 2007

March with the CIW on Burger King Miami

F R O M S F A L L I A N C E . O R G

Save the date!
November 30-December 2, 2007
Miami, Florida

CIW announces march on BK headquarters to coincide with Burger King’s annual shareholder meeting

CIW: “Today, in the wake of the Yum Brands and McDonald’s agreements, we stand on the threshold of a more modern, more humane agricultural industry in Florida. Yet, facing this historic opportunity, Burger King seems to have chosen business as usual over progress, continued exploitation over justice. It is time for Burger King to seize the moment and stand with Florida’s tomato pickers in our fight for fundamental human rights in the fields.”

What: Coalition of Immokalee Workers announces MARCH ON BURGER KING HEADQUARTERS in Miami, Florida, to coincide with Burger King’s annual shareholder meeting.

When: Friday November 30th, 2007

Details: Mark your calendars and start organizing today to join us at Burger King’s headquarters in Miami this November for:

• March with the CIW through downtown Miami, Friday, November 30th. The march will start at the offices of Goldman Sachs, a major shareholder in Burger King, and culminate at Burger King headquarters in a rally featuring farmworkers, national and local supporters of the Campaign for Fair Food, theater, music, art and more. Major speakers will be announced in the coming weeks…

• A weekend of events to follow, including a Concert for Fair Food on Saturday, December 1st and activities with Miami-area faith communities on Sunday, December 2nd.

Contact: Email organize (at) sfalliance.org for more details on the upcoming action. Check out the CIW and SFA websites for more background and campaign updates in the months ahead.

Background: In the spring of 2005, 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 called on its fast-food industry counterparts to join in demanding fair wages and humane treatment for the workers who pick their tomatoes.

In April of this year, following a hard-fought campaign, the CIW and McDonald’s announced a similar agreement, whereby the world’s largest restaurant chain pledged to not only meet the standards set in the Taco Bell accord, but to help extend those standards to the industry level. Specifically, McDonald’s committed to work with the CIW to develop an industry-wide mechanism for monitoring labor conditions in the fields and investigating workers’ complaints of abuse. Like Taco Bell, McDonald’s challenged the rest of the fast-food industry to step up to these higher standards.

Shortly after the McDonald’s agreement was reached, Yum Brands, Taco Bell’s parent company, announced that it was extending its agreement with the CIW to cover the rest of its five major fast-food brands – Pizza Hut, KFC, Long John Silver’s, and A&W Restaurants. With that announcement, the CIW secured the support of both the largest restaurant company in the world (Yum Brands) and the world’s largest restaurant chain (McDonald’s), building unprecedented momentum for an industry-wide effort to secure long-overdue justice in Florida’s fields.

Burger King, however, has stubbornly refused to require these higher standards of its tomato suppliers. While Yum Brands and McDonald’s have demonstrated that it is both necessary and possible to improve farm labor conditions, Burger King has continued to ignore the exploitation of the workers who pick its tomatoes, and refused to work with the CIW to address that exploitation. Instead, it has chosen to side with Florida tomato growers in their efforts to maintain an unconscionable status quo, supporting the growers’ efforts to undermine the hard-won advances in wages and working conditions established in the agreements with Taco Bell and McDonald’s.

Yet Burger King, as the only major fast-food company headquartered in South Florida, is much closer than any of its competitors to the shameful reality in Florida’s tomato fields today. Company executives need only open their morning papers to read the steady drumbeat of headlines and exposes, with such recent titles as “Fields of Desperation – Destitute Farmworkers Exploited” (Miami Herald) and “Modern Day Slavery – Still Harvesting Shame” (Palm Beach Post).

Furthermore, Burger King is hardly a passive observer of farmworker exploitation. Rather, the fast-food giant plays an active role in keeping farmworkers poor. A May, 2005, article published in the produce industry journal “The Packer” describes in detail how fast-food industry demands for lower prices are passed on to farmworkers in the form of wage cuts. The article, entitled, “Big fast-food contracts breaking tomato re-packers,” cites the example of a recent move by Burger King to demand still lower tomato prices from its suppliers as evidence of its claims.

Justice delayed is justice denied. It is time, finally, for Burger King to stop resisting progress and to start working for justice. It is time, finally, for Burger King to join the CIW, McDonald’s and Taco Bell in defining the way forward, a path to more humane conditions for the workers who pick its tomatoes.

In April as we celebrated the McDonald’s victory, we promised that Burger King would hear from us by the end of the year if it continued to stand in the way of change. Today, we encourage our allies in Florida and across the country to help us keep that promise – and the promise of dignified and fair conditions for farmworkers – by joining us in Miami on November 30th and participating in what is sure to be an exciting march, rally, and weekend of events.

Contact organize (at) sfalliance.org for more info on the action.

Wednesday, September 12th, 2007

SFA News September

SFA Encuentro a huge success, “2 months of action” coming up!

Hey everyone,

November 30 may be the official end of hurricane season, but for Burger King it will instead represent the culmination of a “perfect storm” of organizing by the CIW’s student and youth allies.

At this year’s Encuentro, we laid the groundwork for an upcoming 2 months of education, consciousness-raising, and action to bring Burger King to the table to work with the CIW to improve farmworker wages and working conditions, including:

• SFA days of action to coincide with CIW Florida tour - first week of October: Hold a film screening, campaign presentation, or flyer at your local BK - contact us and check out http://sfalliance.org/action.html and http://sfalliance.org/resources.html for more ideas.
• “Kingdoom” days of action - late October: Creative actions taking on the BK brand with a Halloween theme…

• Major mobilization and march on BK headquarters, Miami - late November

Visit http://sfalliance.org today for all the latest news, a report from the Encuentro, new videos, and more!

thanks,

SFA

Thursday, August 23rd, 2007

[CIW News] “Burger Sting”: New articles on growing BK campaign!

As the Campaign for Fair Food turns its sights on Burger King, the press is picking up on the growing campaign.

The Miami New Times, Miami’s alternative weekly, ran a great short piece on the children’s letters to Burger King last week, entitled “Burger Sting.”

The article begins, “It can’t feel good to get scolded by a nine-year-old. How about 100 of them? Burger King vice president Steven Grover might feel like he’s been sent to the corner after receiving several dozen handwritten letters of reprimand from children accusing his company of being stingy when it comes to paying farm workers…”

You can find the article at the CIW site: www.ciw-online.org .

And the Asian American Journalist Association (AAJA) website features an article and video short covering the BK campaign and the August 1st protest in Miami, which coincided with the AAJA’s annual convention there. You can find the video and the article in its entirety here: http://www.aajalink.com/2007/node/119.

Here’s an excerpt: “Norberto Jimenez’s back is surprisingly straight for a man who shoulders 32-pound buckets of tomatoes for 10 hours every day. But instead of picking the red globes Thursday afternoon, Jimenez chanted and shook signs alongside scores of other angry farmworkers, activists and religious leaders at a Miami Burger King restaurant.”

Stay tuned for more as we build toward the big November protest in Miami and more exciting action for Fair Food across the country in the months ahead - thanks,

–Coalition of Immokalee Workers

Friday, May 4th, 2007

From the Clown to the Crown: National BK actions May 11-12th!

Informational Pickets in NYC

Saturday March 12th
Noon: Meet at Union Square South (by the steps)

Proceed to flier and deliver manager letters at:

Burger King
519 6th Ave, b’twn 13th and 14th

Burger King
115 E 23rd St, At Park Ave.

ACTION ALERT FROM THE CIW

Greetings,

The historic Taco Belland McDonald’sagreements were two huge steps down the path to farmworker justice, and students and youth were pivotal in both campaigns. Today, the movement for Fair Food continues as the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and its allies look to expand the precedents of these agreements to the world’s #2 burger chain: Miami-based Burger King.

Mark your calendars and start organizing today to join students and young people across the country this May 11-12 in calling on Burger King to work with the CIW to address the human rights crisis in Florida’s fields. Click herefor action ideas you can take in your own community, including dropping off the newBK manager letter .

While BK uses the purchasing power of thousands of restaurants to drive down tomato prices - and, consequently, tomato pickers’ wages - it has publicly rejectedworking with the CIW to address human rights abuses in the fields (offering, instead, to “re-train” farmworkers to work in its restaurants). As one CIW member put it, “We’re not unemployed. We want dignity and we want them to take responsibility for the conditions we work in the fields.”

Even as it refuses to work with the CIW, however, BK recently announced an initiative to improve the treatment of farm animalsin its supply chain.

This May 11-12, let’s send a strong message to Burger King that Florida’s farmworkers and their student/youth allies are committed to making fast food into fair food - one burger chain at a time:

• Action ideas
• Burger King manager letterand flyer
• Connect with local SFA membersin your community
• Burger King campaign analysis

________
Student/Farmworker Alliance
http://sfalliance.org
http://ciw-online.org
http://myspace.com/sfalliance