Christians back farmworkers in McDonald’s protests
-27/9/06
A delegation of Presbyter
Christians back farmworkers in McDonald’s protests
-27/9/06
A delegation of Presbyterian and United Church of Christ-backed Florida farmworkers will embark on a 10-day “mini-tour” to the Chicago area next month to carry their struggle for higher wages and better working conditions to fast-food giant McDonald’s – writes Evan Silverstein.
Some 10 members of the US Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) will travel by van from Immokalee, Florida, on the three-state multi-city trek, which runs from 14-23 October 2006, with stops in Illinois, Kentucky and Indiana.
Highlights will include a peaceful rally on 20 October outside the hamburger company’s suburban Chicago corporate offices in Oak Brook, Illinois. Another peaceful demonstration will follow in downtown Chicago the next day.
The CIW, an organization of farmworkers who pick tomatoes that McDonald’s uses in its products, is sponsoring the event, expected to feature national human-rights speakers, religious leaders, student leaders and musicians.
The aim is to raise awareness of the egregious conditions in the Florida fields where tomatoes are picked for McDonald’s, the world’s largest chain of fast-food restaurants.
“The upcoming tour is to let McDonald’s know that their consumers are continuing to follow this (issue) and want the company to make the right decision to work together with the Coalition to improve the wages and conditions of the farmworkers in their supply chain,” said Julia Perkins, a CIW spokesperson.
She added: “We want to get that message out there and to educate others in the community about what those conditions are so they can be educated consumers.”
The Coalition, which says it seeks justice for farmworkers and promotes their fair treatment, is demanding higher wages and improved working conditions from growers who supply tomatoes to McDonald’s.
The CIW wants the company to use its market leverage to force Florida growers to pay the workers one cent more per pound for tomatoes. The CIW also wants McDonald’s to establish an enforceable code of conduct for growers and packers and to include farmworkers in the creation and monitoring of that code.
Florida farmworkers suffer the same miserable conditions experienced by generations of farmworkers, including forced labor and wages that leave them in deep poverty, according to the CIW. The pickers now earn 40 to 45 cents per 32-pound bucket, a rate essentially unchanged for nearly 30 years.
During the tour the tomato pickers will be joined at each stop, organizers say, by supporters including Presbyterians and other people of faith, student activists, farmers, labor groups and community leaders.
While in Louisville, the CIW will visit churches and hold a peaceful demonstration outside a McDonald’s restaurant in cooperation with the Mexico Solidarity Network, a grassroots organization with offices in Washington DC and Chicago that’s working for economic justice and human rights on both sides of the United States-Mexico border.
CIW is working to firm up plans for the representatives to visit Anchorage Presbyterian Church in suburban Louisville, where they have been invited to address an adult Sunday school class.
“In Louisville we’ve always been just so warmly welcomed by the Presbyterian community there,” Perkins said.
The CIW will conclude its tour on 23 October in South Bend, IN, where it will address students at the University of Notre Dame. In 2004 the university decided not to renew a sponsorship agreement that its athletic department had with Taco Bell because of concerns raised by students over the treatment of farmworkers in the company’s supply chain.
“The students at the University of Notre Dame were hugely involved in the Taco Bell boycott,” Perkins said. “They did the hunger strikes and major actions to really force the administration of their university to make a stand for human rights. So we will be updating those students on what’s happening now with the campaign and getting them to take action as well.”
During the Taco Bell boycott, the Presbyterian Church (USA) helped arrange meetings between Yum! executives and members of the Coalition after the denomination’s 214th General Assembly approved endorsing the campaign in 2002.
In February 2004, an eight-mile protest march to Yum! headquarters started at the PC (USA)’s national offices here, which, at the request of the company and the CIW, later hosted a victory celebration to mark the ground-breaking agreement and the end of the boycott.
The PC (USA) has publicly commended Yum! Brands for working as a partner with the CIW and for charting a new course for the fast-food industry. During last summer’s 217th GA in Birmingham, AL, the PC (USA) reaffirmed its ongoing work with the CIW and engagement of fast-food corporations through its Campaign for Fair Food.
Presbyterians have also been active during CIW’s engagement of McDonald’s, participating in national letter-writing campaigns urging the company to improve wages and labour conditions for farmworkers just as Yum! and Taco Bell did.
“We are disappointed that [McDonaldís] has chosen thus far not to follow Yum! and Taco Bell’s lead,” said the Rev Noelle Damico, a United Church of Christ minister who serves as the PC (USA)’s Associate for Fair Food. “Daily the chorus for food that is ‘fair,’ and not just fast, is rising among Presbyterians and other people of faith and conscience. We hope that this tour will help McDonald’s understand that their own customers want them to work as partners with the farmworkers.”
McDonald’s officials said that the company has joined a voluntary programme that certifies producers that have “complied with all applicable laws and regulations governing employment” and that foster a work environment “free of hazard, intimidation, violence and harassment.”
However, the CIW has dismissed the initiative called the SAFE (Socially Accountable Farm Employer) programme, saying the code does nothing to address the sub-poverty wages paid to workers, and noted that the CIW was not involved in its development and still has no involvement in the program.
The Rev Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the PC (USA)’s General Assembly, was among the leaders of religious and human-rights organizations that have criticized the SAFE programme
The PC (USA) became a founding Alliance For Fair Food member when the denomination’s General Assembly Council voted in September 2005 to join the fair-food alliance, which includes dozens of religious organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community agencies and student and labour groups.
In a celebrated and landmark case in the UK in the mid-1990s, two activists (Helen Steele and David Morris) were prosecuted by McDonaldís for a leaflet critical of the company in a libel trial that lasted for two-and-a-half years and became the longest of its kind in English legal history.The verdict was devastating for McDonald’s.
Though the company won some issues, for what many considered technical reasons, the McLibel judge ruled that they ‘exploit children’ with their advertising, produce ‘misleading’ advertising, are ‘culpably responsible’ for cruelty to animals, are ‘antipathetic’ to unionisation and pay their workers low wages.
Sojourners in Washington DC are urging supporters to send a letter to McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner to demand that McDonald’s work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to ensure fair wages and working conditions in its tomato supply chain.
[Also on Ekklesia: US church fair-wage activists pressurise McDonald’s -24/08/06; Faith and labour groups enjoy US minimum wage successes; Christian social justice meeting switches to ‘living wage’ hotel; Study reveals causes of poverty remain the same; Mennonites highlight plight of Canadaís undocumented migrant workers; Campaigners celebrate as IBM unveils code of conduct; Millions of world’s poorest workers face New Year misery; Methodists celebrate trade unions and martyrs for workers rights; Give injustice the Red Card; Church group expresses concern over global recruitment of migrant workers; Methodist church and trade unions team up against exploitation; Wealth needs to be shared, says Faithful Cities commission; Call for paradigm shift in migration debate; Is God bankrupt? – Ekklesia economy report; Praise for ‘just wealth’ but report leaves God bankrupt; Church urban report (Faithful Cities) dismissed as socialism and piety; Christians call for monetary justice as Bono weathers tax storm]
Christians back farmworkers in McDonald’s protests
-27/9/06
A delegation of Presbyterian and United Church of Christ-backed Florida farmworkers will embark on a 10-day “mini-tour” to the Chicago area next month to carry their struggle for higher wages and better working conditions to fast-food giant McDonald’s – writes Evan Silverstein.
Some 10 members of the US Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) will travel by van from Immokalee, Florida, on the three-state multi-city trek, which runs from 14-23 October 2006, with stops in Illinois, Kentucky and Indiana.
Highlights will include a peaceful rally on 20 October outside the hamburger company’s suburban Chicago corporate offices in Oak Brook, Illinois. Another peaceful demonstration will follow in downtown Chicago the next day.
The CIW, an organization of farmworkers who pick tomatoes that McDonald’s uses in its products, is sponsoring the event, expected to feature national human-rights speakers, religious leaders, student leaders and musicians.
The aim is to raise awareness of the egregious conditions in the Florida fields where tomatoes are picked for McDonald’s, the world’s largest chain of fast-food restaurants.
“The upcoming tour is to let McDonald’s know that their consumers are continuing to follow this (issue) and want the company to make the right decision to work together with the Coalition to improve the wages and conditions of the farmworkers in their supply chain,” said Julia Perkins, a CIW spokesperson.
She added: “We want to get that message out there and to educate others in the community about what those conditions are so they can be educated consumers.”
The Coalition, which says it seeks justice for farmworkers and promotes their fair treatment, is demanding higher wages and improved working conditions from growers who supply tomatoes to McDonald’s.
The CIW wants the company to use its market leverage to force Florida growers to pay the workers one cent more per pound for tomatoes. The CIW also wants McDonald’s to establish an enforceable code of conduct for growers and packers and to include farmworkers in the creation and monitoring of that code.
Florida farmworkers suffer the same miserable conditions experienced by generations of farmworkers, including forced labor and wages that leave them in deep poverty, according to the CIW. The pickers now earn 40 to 45 cents per 32-pound bucket, a rate essentially unchanged for nearly 30 years.
During the tour the tomato pickers will be joined at each stop, organizers say, by supporters including Presbyterians and other people of faith, student activists, farmers, labor groups and community leaders.
While in Louisville, the CIW will visit churches and hold a peaceful demonstration outside a McDonald’s restaurant in cooperation with the Mexico Solidarity Network, a grassroots organization with offices in Washington DC and Chicago that’s working for economic justice and human rights on both sides of the United States-Mexico border.
CIW is working to firm up plans for the representatives to visit Anchorage Presbyterian Church in suburban Louisville, where they have been invited to address an adult Sunday school class.
“In Louisville we’ve always been just so warmly welcomed by the Presbyterian community there,” Perkins said.
The CIW will conclude its tour on 23 October in South Bend, IN, where it will address students at the University of Notre Dame. In 2004 the university decided not to renew a sponsorship agreement that its athletic department had with Taco Bell because of concerns raised by students over the treatment of farmworkers in the company’s supply chain.
“The students at the University of Notre Dame were hugely involved in the Taco Bell boycott,” Perkins said. “They did the hunger strikes and major actions to really force the administration of their university to make a stand for human rights. So we will be updating those students on what’s happening now with the campaign and getting them to take action as well.”
During the Taco Bell boycott, the Presbyterian Church (USA) helped arrange meetings between Yum! executives and members of the Coalition after the denomination’s 214th General Assembly approved endorsing the campaign in 2002.
In February 2004, an eight-mile protest march to Yum! headquarters started at the PC (USA)’s national offices here, which, at the request of the company and the CIW, later hosted a victory celebration to mark the ground-breaking agreement and the end of the boycott.
The PC (USA) has publicly commended Yum! Brands for working as a partner with the CIW and for charting a new course for the fast-food industry. During last summer’s 217th GA in Birmingham, AL, the PC (USA) reaffirmed its ongoing work with the CIW and engagement of fast-food corporations through its Campaign for Fair Food.
Presbyterians have also been active during CIW’s engagement of McDonald’s, participating in national letter-writing campaigns urging the company to improve wages and labour conditions for farmworkers just as Yum! and Taco Bell did.
“We are disappointed that [McDonaldís] has chosen thus far not to follow Yum! and Taco Bell’s lead,” said the Rev Noelle Damico, a United Church of Christ minister who serves as the PC (USA)’s Associate for Fair Food. “Daily the chorus for food that is ‘fair,’ and not just fast, is rising among Presbyterians and other people of faith and conscience. We hope that this tour will help McDonald’s understand that their own customers want them to work as partners with the farmworkers.”
McDonald’s officials said that the company has joined a voluntary programme that certifies producers that have “complied with all applicable laws and regulations governing employment” and that foster a work environment “free of hazard, intimidation, violence and harassment.”
However, the CIW has dismissed the initiative called the SAFE (Socially Accountable Farm Employer) programme, saying the code does nothing to address the sub-poverty wages paid to workers, and noted that the CIW was not involved in its development and still has no involvement in the program.
The Rev Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the PC (USA)’s General Assembly, was among the leaders of religious and human-rights organizations that have criticized the SAFE programme
The PC (USA) became a founding Alliance For Fair Food member when the denomination’s General Assembly Council voted in September 2005 to join the fair-food alliance, which includes dozens of religious organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community agencies and student and labour groups.
In a celebrated and landmark case in the UK in the mid-1990s, two activists (Helen Steele and David Morris) were prosecuted by McDonaldís for a leaflet critical of the company in a libel trial that lasted for two-and-a-half years and became the longest of its kind in English legal history.The verdict was devastating for McDonald’s.
Though the company won some issues, for what many considered technical reasons, the McLibel judge ruled that they ‘exploit children’ with their advertising, produce ‘misleading’ advertising, are ‘culpably responsible’ for cruelty to animals, are ‘antipathetic’ to unionisation and pay their workers low wages.
Sojourners in Washington DC are urging supporters to send a letter to McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner to demand that McDonald’s work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to ensure fair wages and working conditions in its tomato supply chain.
[Also on Ekklesia: US church fair-wage activists pressurise McDonald’s -24/08/06; Faith and labour groups enjoy US minimum wage successes; Christian social justice meeting switches to ‘living wage’ hotel; Study reveals causes of poverty remain the same; Mennonites highlight plight of Canadaís undocumented migrant workers; Campaigners celebrate as IBM unveils code of conduct; Millions of world’s poorest workers face New Year misery; Methodists celebrate trade unions and martyrs for workers rights; Give injustice the Red Card; Church group expresses concern over global recruitment of migrant workers; Methodist church and trade unions team up against exploitation; Wealth needs to be shared, says Faithful Cities commission; Call for paradigm shift in migration debate; Is God bankrupt? – Ekklesia economy report; Praise for ‘just wealth’ but report leaves God bankrupt; Church urban report (Faithful Cities) dismissed as socialism and piety; Christians call for monetary justice as Bono weathers tax storm]