Wednesday, March 21st, 2007
-please circulate widely-
http://action.americanrightsatwork.org/campaign/araw_mcdonalds
American Rights At Work, a leading voice for workplace democracy in the country today, is taking on the CIW’s McDonald’s campaign with a national E-Action Alert!
Click here (http://action.americanrightsatwork.org/campaign/araw_mcdonalds ) now to participate in an online petition demanding that McDonald’s implement fair wages and real rights for the farmworkers who pick its tomatoes. And after you sign the petition, you can help spread the word by sending the following message to 10 friends:
“Farmworkers who pick tomatoes for the fast food industry are among this country’s most exploited workers: subpoverty wages, no rights to overtime pay, no benefits of any kind.
Two years ago, Taco Bell did something about it — agreeing to pay a penny more per pound of tomatoes to double the workers’ earnings, and establishing a real code of conduct to ensure safe working conditions. But fast food giant McDonald’s has refused to follow Taco Bell’s lead.
Consumers have joined together with religious, human rights, student, and workers’ rights groups across the country to protest McDonald’s refusal to advance real rights for these workers.
I just signed a petition to McDonald’s to urge them to do better. Will you join me? Just click here ( http://action.americanrightsatwork.org/campaign/araw_mcdonalds ) to tell McDonalds these workers deserve real rights and fair wages.”
__________
Marc Rodrigues
Student/Farmworker Alliance
(239) 292-3431
http://sfalliance.org
http://ciw-online.org
http://myspace.com/sfalliance
Thursday, February 22nd, 2007
Hello everyone,
There is some exciting news as we prepare for the CIW’s upcoming McDonald’s Truth Tour!
The Rev. Michael Livingston, President of the National Council of Churches, Catholic Bishop John Manz, Kerry Kennedy, and Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, will all join CIW farmworkers this April, either for the rally at McDonald’s Headquarters on Friday, April 13th or the parade for Fair Food in downtown Chicago on Saturday, April 14th.
We invite you to join CIW farmworkers in the Chicago area on April 13 & 14th! For two years now, we all have been patiently encouraging McDonald’s to improve sub-poverty wages and abuses in its tomato supply chain and McDonald’s has steadfastly refused while farmworkers continue to suffer. Make your plans now to join the CIW at McDonald’s Headquarters this April for historic actions to call on McDonald’s to do the right thing! Buses will be leaving from cities across the country to join the CIW in ushering in a new phase in the McDonald’s Campaign and we invite you can join us as well! For more information or help with logistics for transportation and lodging, contact info(at)interfaithact.org or 239-986-0688.
More…
Wednesday, February 14th, 2007
People of New York!!!
Fair Food NYC is organizing two caravans of justice headed to Chicago for the CIW mobilization in April and we want you to come!
What: McDonalds Truth Tour and major CIW mobilization in Chicago
When: The bus from NYC leaves late evening Thursday April 12th, and returns late night Sunday April 15th
Who: Students, workers, community groups, people of faith and folks from around New York City
Why: To rise up with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers for their annual Truth Tour and to tell McDonalds that we won’t back down until they agree to work with the CIW for farmworkers rights and a penny more per pound!
To secure your place on the bus, email Leanne at lentejasrojas(at)gmail.com with your name, email address and phone number and we’ll take it from there.
Additionally, the week of February 26th, Celeste from the Student-Farmworker Alliance will be in New York meeting with some local groups and there will be a few public events you can attend to learn more about the local campaign and the trip to Chicago. Look for emails soon about a final schedule for those.
See you in the streets!
Fair Food New York CIty
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