Fighting For Fairness In The Fields

In 2001, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworker organization based out of the town of Immokalee in southwest Florida, launched a national boycott of fast-food chain Taco Bell, demanding that the company pay just one more penny per pound for the tomatoes it purchases and work with the CIW to implement a code of conduct that would respect workers' human rights in the fields.This tactic was chosen because workers in Immokalee came to realize that Taco Bell, its parent company Yum Brands, and other huge corporate purchasers of tomatoes have used their power and leverage for decades to demand cheaper and cheaper tomatoes (and other produce), translating into lower wages and worse working conditions for the people picking that produce.

For me, this issue is a personal one. I will always remember the first time I met members of the CIW and heard them tell their stories and how deeply affected and moved I was -- it was at the "Life After Capitalism" confererence organized to provide alternative political visions in New York City just one week before the start of the 2004 Republican National Convention. I had heard here and there about the CIW's work and invited them to participate in a panel on new approaches to worker organizing.

Unlike any other workers organization I had ever come into contact with before, the CIW members spoke powerfully, genuinely, about things like dignity. Family. Happiness and human fulfillment. The things that are so often denied to a farmworker toiling under sweatshop conditions and living in a place like Immokalee. What I heard that day changed my life.

I became more active in the campaign, interned with the Student/Farmworker Alliance in 2005, and came on as full-time staff in 2006. I think that fundamentally, this movement is about the dignity of farmworkers and young people alike.

During the Taco Bell boycott, which finally ended successfully in 2005 when Taco Bell agreed to the CIW's demands, the participation of students and youth was crucial.

We were able to prove that young people are concerned with issues of human rights, dignity, and fairness. A decentralized solidarity network quickly spread from Florida to the entire country, and the Student/Farmworker Alliance (SFA) was born. During the Taco Bell boycott, young people removed or prevented Taco Bell restaurants or sponsorships from 22 different high school and college campuses. We were also heavily involved in the victory earlier this year when the CIW and McDonald's agreed to a similar accord to increase farmworker wages and improve working conditions.

SFA is comprised of mostly young people, not necessarily all students. Some got involved because their parents had been farmworkers; others came out of the global justice movement and were attracted to the CIW's anti-corporate analysis. SFA members have worked and organized tirelessly over the years in their own communities, on their own campuses, and also to support CIW events such as the CIW"s annual "Truth Tour." The overwhelming majority of this work is done on a volunteer basis, with each person adding their "little grain of sand" to contribute to a larger vision of change.

Many Americans probably don't associate the terms "sweatshop" or "slavery" with anything that could be happening within the US. The fact of the matter is, however, that at the onset of the 21st century, farmworkers in the US toil in abysmal conditions for sub-poverty annual wages without basic rights and protections, including the right to organize, the right to overtime pay, or benefits of any kind. While fast-food corporations and grocery mega-chains report ever-increasing sales and profit margins, the farmworkers responsible for picking their fruits and vegetables receive piece rates that have not changed significantly in three decades. In the most extreme cases, workers face modern-day slavery.

The recently-released book by John Bowe entitled Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy takes an in-depth look at a 2004 case in central Florida where hundreds of agricultural workers were held against their will and forced to work under gunpoint and threats of violence. This case, like 5 others like it since 1997, was discovered and investigated by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

Many Florida farmworkers are our age: 18 to 25. Through a myriad of historic and social injustices, they have found themselves toiling in the fields of Florida while we are bombarded with the advertising of an industry -- of a system, really -- that has no regard for human dignity. Obviously, our struggles are not the same, but they converge. I think that together with farmworkers, we are one step closer to building a world of freedom and justice. One multinational fast-food corporation at a time.

As one CIW member once put it, "It is our hope that today's farmworker movement will serve as one of many points on the horizon that inspires young people to believe in the possibility of a better world - a world where we all have space to realize our dreams."

It is that world that myself and an increasing number of young people are fighting for, whether in our work with SFA in solidarity with farmworkers or on any other number of issues and causes. Today, the CIW's campaigns continue. After reaching agreements with Taco Bell and Yum Brands and McDonald's, there is real hope and a sense of a historic opportunity to finally modernize and improve conditions in US agriculture. But other companies, such as our current target Burger King, still stand in the way of progress, still denying responsibility. This doesn't worry me, however. After all, as was once said, "there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come."

This is just an introduction. We invite young people to learn more and think about ways to get involved and how our actions can lead to a better world.

-Marc Rodrigues, SFA

Comments

[soledad]

(continued from above)

....I think those people doing that work at least deserve to be treated like human beings and make enough of a wage to provide for themselves and their families.

The day-to-day human rights abuses we see in the fields of Florida pre-date the fact that today, most of the workforce are immigrants (with varying legal status in this country, mind you).

The latest case of forced labor in the fields that the CIW helped to uncover, which was just prosecuted in January of this year, involved African-American, US-born, US citizen workers forced to pick potatoes at gunpoint and paid with crack cocaine and liquor at the end of each week on company credit. This is the nature of agriculture in the United States in the 21st century, regardless of your "legal" status in this country.

[soledad]

Just to clear up a couple things mentioned in the previous comments-

1) Yum Brands is not a Chinese-owned company to my knowledge. They're headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky.

2) Actually, if the prices have gone up at Taco Bell, it's more likely to do with inflation or other factors rather than their agreement with the CIW. Taco Bell has not had to raise prices for consumers because of the extra penny-per-pound, and neither will McDonald's when they start paying it with the just-started growing season. Think about it: How many pounds of tomatoes are in a typical chalupa or cheeseburger?

Also, of course, the amount the penny-per-pound comes out to is really nothing more than a drop in the bucket for these corporations (too bad they fight it tooth and nail for so long before finally coming around). I mean, the CEO of Burger King probably goes through more in his expense account in a month than what the penny-per-pound would cost them in a year. With the asinine profits these corporations make (due in no small part to farmworker exploitation and decades of artificially cheap ingredients in their products), there's no reason or necessity for them to raise prices for consumers.

3) So-called "illegal" immigration is not the problem. Free trade agreements that force small farmers off their land in Mexico and Central America are the problem. Civil Wars supported by Cold War superpowers that killed and displaced untold millions of people in Central America are the problem. These and other global/financial/political forces that *force* people to migrate (both within their own countries and across international boundaries) are the problem. Once people are here, working 12-hour days 6 or 7 days a week in back-breaking, skilled jobs that are absolutely essential to the economy of this country and essential to every American who wants a glass of orange juice in the morning or food on their table....

[JudyGee]

Keep the student momentum going. The media, who had once produced the riveting documentary, Harvest of Shame, rallying the American public and its legislators to action about the plight of migrant workers, is no longer anything more than a corporate puppet. Nothing gets reported that is not in their interests.

[ConcernedAboutRFuture]

Taco Bell is owned by a Chinese company. I can see it being very difficult to fight a company from a country that is not known for its human rights.

Most of the tomato fields in Collier County and south are worked by Mexican immigrants... many of them illegal and with families. Before you rant about "illegal"... I challenge you to go work those fields... I challenge you to find an AMERICAN that will work those fields. They are continually abused... and often times shacked up in squalor and CHARGED rent... which often results in a negative paycheck where they end up owing the farmer money.... which he gladly extorts from them via threats of INS reports. It's a sad story... and when I think of the horrible conditions they have to work in ... heat, fire ants, who knows what else...it's right near the Everglades, oh and did i mention unbearable heat and humidity.... I can't imagine why a company would fight a 1 cent hike per lb for product to improve the lives of these people.

I can't possibly justify ever eating at Taco Bell again...and neither should you.

[TuffPosh]

Wow. It sure sounds like illegal immigration is something to be discouraged.

However, you're supporting it. Therefore, you're supporting all the abuses you pretend to decry.

Maybe if this organization opposed illegal immigration - like Cesar Chavez (very strongly) did - they'd find that the problems would be much less and they'd get much more support.

Of course, that might cost them race-based power, so I guess doing the right thing is off the table.

[mommadona]

What happened to Chavez's United Farm Workers?
Was that only the West Coast?

[groucho]

Wow, now i know why my nachos supreme went up 5cents. Congratulations to a youth movement that is successful, I wish more youth were interested in the world around them. For that matter, i wish adults were more concerned what they are leaving behind for the youth. This live for today is disgusting.

[inplainsight]

Marc, I didn't even know there *was* a student farmworker movement! Kudos to you and your fellow organizers.

I hope you eventually will be able to move from fast-food companies to grocery-store companies. I would like to know that the produce I buy at the store was not harvested in a way that exploited workers.