CIW ALLIES HARD AT WORK ACROSS THE COUNTRY — AND BEYOND!

Fair Food activists are keeping the pressure on McDonald’s with summer actions creating countless opportunities for face-to-face dialogue between CIW allies and the people who actually do the work in McDonald’s restaurants.

Don Jennings (left) sent us this picture of his visit to a McDonald’s restaurant located "on the dusty byways of southern Appalachia" (Berea, KY, to be exact), where he reports that his concerns and the Manager’s Letter were well received by this hard-working manager.

While the Austin-based activist pictured on the front page actually took the battle for Fair Food across the border, and is pictured here (right) inside a McDonald’s located in the city of Oaxaca, Mexico, where he helped Florida farmworkers — many of whom are originally from Oaxaca — make their voices heard in their own home town!

You might remember Oaxaca as the city where community activists fought — and won — to keep McDonald’s from opening a resaurant smack in the middle of the city’s historic central plaza, or Zocalo. Oaxaca’s central historical district is one of Mexico’s 22 World Heritage Sites. Click here if you’d like to read more about how "a small group with substantial influence," in the words of McD’s head of PR in Mexico, managed to keep this cultural treasure free of fast-food.

And to make your voice heard in the ongoing battle to make fast-food fair food, too, you can download your own copy of the Manager’s letter by clicking here. Take it to your local McDonald’s and let the manager know it’s time the fast-food giant help end sweatshops in Florida’s tomato fields. And click here to find out what else you can do this summer to demand fair food and real rights for farmworkers. If you document your visit, you just might find your picture featured here!

August 2, 2006

ALSO IN THE NEWS…

Late last month, Bishop John Lipscomb of the Episcopal Diocese of Southwest Florida visited Immokalee to learn more about the CIW’s work fighting sweatshops and slavery in the fields and how the Episcopal Church can help support these efforts.

After a walking tour of Immokalee, Bishop Lipscomb spoke on the CIW’s Community Radio station (pictured on left), bringing a clear message of solidarity in the struggle for fair wages and better lives for farmworkers. Later, after an in-depth discussion with CIW leaders about the root causes of sub-poverty wages and abuses, the conversation turned to concrete ideas for how the Diocese and Episcopal Church can support the CIW’s efforts. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more as the Episcopal Church makes its voice heard in the Campiagn for Fair Food!….