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