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Forwarded from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

 

Hello Friends,


Greetings from Immokalee!  We hope everyone is doing well!   As you may have heard, Burger King has joined up with the most conservative elements of the tomato industry to try to undermine the McDonald's and Yum agreements-- the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange is now fining tomato growers that pass on the extra penny from McDonalds and Yum onto tomato pickers.  Meanwhile, another case of modern-day slavery in the tomato fields has surfaced- where workers were locked and chained in U-Haul trucks- and is currently under prosecution.  McDonald's and Yum brands remain committed in working with the CIW and improving the wages and conditions in their tomato supply chains, but we need your help to get Burger King to stop thwarting progress and instead join in ensuring human rights and fair wages for tomato pickers! 

The CIW has launched a National Petition Campaign to End Sweatshops and Slavery in the Fields and we will be delivering petitions to Burger King Headquarters on April 28.  We invite you to print out the petition and collect signatures in your congregation and then mail them to us!   Many thanks to those who have already sent in signatures.  The petition draws on early strategies of the abolitionist movement and there are more details below. 

To download the petition to collect signatures in your community, click here. 
(or reply to this and I can send you the PDF)

Thank you for your continued partnership!
Brigitte

Background
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers is launching a national petition campaign calling on Burger King and other food industry leaders to work with the CIW to:
  • improve the wages and working conditions of the men and women who harvest their tomatoes, and
  • support an industry-wide effort to end human rights violations and modern-day slavery in all of Florida's fields.
The petition will also serve as notice that those who sign are "prepared to stop patronizing Burger King now, and other food industry leaders in the future, should they fail to do so."  

The launch of this petition campaign comes on the heels of a January 2008 federal indictment for the seventh case of modern-day slavery to emerge from Florida's fields in the past ten years.  US Attorney Doug Molloy called the operation “slavery, plain and simple” (Ft. Myers News-Press, “Group accused of keeping, beating, stealing from Immokalee laborers” 1/18/08).  The employers were charged with beating workers who were unwilling or unable to work or who attempted to leave their employ, holding workers in debt, and chaining and locking workers inside u-haul trucks as punishment ("How about a side order of human rights?" Miami Herald, 12/16/07). The workers picked tomatoes on Immokalee area farms.  This slavery cases flourished because of the norm of sweatshop conditions faced by Florida tomato pickers, who haven't received a real wage increase in three decades and are denied most basic labor rights.  Tomato pickers earn just 40 to 50 cents for every 32 pound bucket of tomatoes that they pick and haul.

 

Petition campaigns and consumer actions by British citizens helped hasten the abolition of the British slave trade in 1807. The CIW petition campaign honors the 200th anniversary of the US ban against the importation of slaves (1808), and echoes the petition strategy of the early abolitionist movement.

Much more than an e-campaign, we invite you to bring the petition campaign to life in your communities and congregations.  Be creative in collecting petition signatures - in addition to paper petitions, you can collect petition signatures on giant cardboard tomatoes, parchment, banners, or other creative idea appropriate to your faith community.  All the petitions will be delivered to Burger King this spring during a special ceremony and procession at Burger King Headquarters.  You can either have a representative from your community join us to deliver your petitions or mail them to us and we will make sure they are delivered.  For more background about the petition campaign, visit http://www.ciw-online.org/2008_Petitions 

For the petition and ideas for collecting petition signatures: www.ciw-online.org/2008_Petitions/join.html 



 

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