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The Taco Bell boycott is nothing if not a battle for
the truth -- and for Taco Bell, when it comes to the
truth about their product, image is everything.
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Taco
Bell market researchers
hard at work... |
Taco Bell has spent millions in studying its consumers,
and the company thinks it has a pretty good idea about
what's important to the young people that buy its tacos,
chalupas, and quesadillas.
In a press release announcing the completion of a 1999
marketing survey, Taco Bell coined the term "The
New Hedonism Generation" to describe the company's
target market of 18-24 year olds.
The survey describes today's young people as "addicted
to constant stimulation," and cited several trends
that provide what Taco Bell feels are crucial insights
into the minds of their market.
According to the survey results:
"* Bored with rule-bound traditional sports,
more people are participating in new hybrid sports
like snowboarding, snowblading, windsurfing, street
luging, cyclocross and roller hockey.
* 38% of television viewers channel surf, up from
15 percent in 1985.
* Quick, MTV-type film editing creates a purely visceral
response..."
Armed with this critical intelligence, Taco Bell's
marketers concluded, "To catch increasingly short
attention spans -- and the insatiable demand for novelty
-- marketers today need to follow the lead of the entertainment
industry with a steady stream of new products... This
life-in-the-fast-lane sensibility also fuels hedonistic
impulses, from raves torich-tasting food."
Taco
Bell's image of hip, fun food... |
With their "Open Late" slogans and X-Games
sponsorships, Taco Bell would have consumers believe
that when they eat at Taco Bell, they are taking part
in an exciting, fast-paced cultural phenomenon, with
food as edgy and iconoclastic as the X-Games themselves.
And they work hard to help consumers shape their opinions
-- according to the company's website, "On the
average, 147 million people see a Taco Bell commercial
once a week – more than half of the U.S. population."
...
and the reality behind the food. |
We, on the other hand, don't have millions for research,
much less billions for advertising. But, we are pretty
sure that most people care about more than just "constant
stimulation." In fact, in our talks with tens of
thousands of people across the country, the labor conditions
behind the food, the reality behind the brand, are pretty
important, too.
For workers from Immokalee, the truth about Taco Bell's
food begins not behind the counter at your local restaurant,
but in Immokalee, where the tomatoes that go into Taco
Bell's products are planted, grown, and picked.
We hope that, when you think about biting into a Taco
Bell taco, you think about the workers who picked the
tomatoes in that taco and the sweatshop conditions that
they continue to suffer in Florida's fields today --
sub-poverty wages, no right to organize, no right to
overtime pay, and no benefits whatsoever.
 We'd
like you to consider that farmworkers have to pick two
tons of tomatoes to make $50 a day.
And we'd like you to know that there is a community
of workers who have had enough, and who are fighting
back to win a fair wage and respect for the back-breaking,
dangerous work they do.
That's why we have had to work hard over the course
of the boycott to document our struggle and tell our
story, in our own words. There are hundreds of mainstream
media stories on the boycott, and while many of them
are quite good, none of them captures the harsh reality
of farm labor conditions and the intensity of this campaign
as we can ourselves.
We have video shorts produced during our two cross-country
Truth Tours and our 2003 Hunger Strike, public service
announcements that you can use on your community radio,
and a new 30-minute documentary on our fight and the
last 2004 Truth Tour, entitled "Immokalee: From
Slavery to Freedom," produced by Jeff Imig of Pan
Left Productions in conjunction with the CIW. Click
on the links on the right hand side of this page to
download video shorts from our actions and on the links
below for the 30-minute documentary and two mp3 sound
files.
We hope our collection of media will help you think
critically about the choices you make as a consumer
and about the messages created to shape those choices
that find you through the mainstream media.
 Download
"Immokalee: From Slavery to Freedom" by
Jeff Imig and Pan Left Productions
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* View
original Quicktime movie from Day 3 of East LA to Irvine
March (1.98
MB)
*
View original Quicktime movie from Day 2 of
East LA to Irvine March (4.17
MB)
*
View original Quicktime movie from Day 1 of
East LA to Irvine March (4.0
MB)
*
View original Quicktime movie from Day Five (1 MB)
 *
Religious leaders intervene -- Hunger strike ends...
click here for video (7.7
MB Quicktime)
* Slowrider challenge to Taco Bell at Friday convergence
click
here for video! (9.5 MB Quicktime
- long download)
* CIW Street theater sets spiritual tone for Friday
convergence at TB HQ click
here for video (9.6 MB Quicktime
- long)
* San Francisco Solidarity Action click
here for video (1.8 MB Quicktime)
 *
Cuatehmoc Aztec Dancers perform at the Hunger Strike
click
here for video (5.8 MB Quicktime)
* Sacramento Solidarity Action click
here for video (5 MB Quicktime)
* JG & Havikenhayes
play Centro Cultural de Mexico, Los Angeles click
here for the video (11 MB
Quicktime)
* Hunger Strike Begins!
Check
out the GREAT VIDEO from Day 1 by clicking here
(5.7 MB Quicktime) 
* Human Rights School
on the bus --
Modern-day slavery (6 MB Quicktime) Indigenous
rights in Guatemala (5.5 MB
Quicktime)
* Countdown to the Hunger
Strike Click
here to download (6.1
MB Quicktime)
 *
Philadelphia
* Washington,
DC
* New
York No. 1
* New
York No. 2
* Boston
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