NEWS FROM THE FIRST TWO YEARS OF THE TACO BELL BOYCOTT
| IMMIGRANT FREEDOM RIDE HITS IMMOKALEE - 9/03! |
IMMIGRANT WORKERS FREEDOM
RIDE STOPS IN IMMOKALEE!...
On
Saturday, September 27, over 400 farmworkers, students,
local churches, and peace activists from Immokalee,
Ft. Myers, and Naples and the Immigrant Workers Freedom
Riders from Miami joined together in a spirited march
and rally for immigrants' rights.
Despite the on-again off again downpour (and a visit from the Southwest Florida chapter of the KKK!...), the CIW and friends enjoyed the music of JG and Havikenhayes of Over the Counter Intelligence and speeches by members of the comunity and the freedom riders. Saturday's activities wrapped up with a recording of the inspirational words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, "Keep this movement rolling, keep this movement going. If you can't fly, run. If you can't run, walk. If you can't walk, crawl. But by all means keep moving."
| CIW TESTIFIES IN CONGRESS AGAINST FTAA - 6/03! |
"Everyone has the right to work, to free choice
of employment, to just and favourable conditions of
work and to protection against unemployment... Everyone
who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence
worthy of human dignity... 
Everyone
has the right to form and to join trade unions for the
protection of his interests..." Article
23, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
"No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms." Article 3, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
On June 12, 2003 the CIW joined Food First, small farmers and other low-wage workers to tell Congress that free trade does not protect our human rights.
Clips from the webcast are posted at www.foodfirst.org. The CIW's testimony will be posted soon.
Members
of Congress' Progressive Caucus including Dennis Kucunich,
D-OH, John Conyers, D-MI, and Lynne Woolsey were in
attendance to hear testimony about how:
* Free trade has eliminated 3
million U.S. jobs.
* Seventy-one percent of U.S. industrial employers threaten
to close factories and move if workers form a union.
*U.S. family farmers face extinction.
*Displaced family farmers from Mexico and Central America
migrate to the United States only to find themselves
in sweatshop conditions and in the most extreme cases
slavery.
| CIW PROTEST AT YUM BRANDS SHAREHOLDER MEETING - 5/03! |
WHAT
EXACTLY IS GOING ON IN THIS PHOTO FROM YUM's ANNUAL
SHAREHOLDERS MEETING?... Here's
a hint: Check out the excerpt from the CIW's press release
for the action, below:
Lucas Benitez of the CIW says, “We have investigated
(slavery) cases where people have been pistol-whipped,
held at gunpoint, beaten, and told they would have their
tongues cut out if they talked to the authorities. Of
course, that’s the extreme of exploitation in
the fields, but sweatshop conditions -- sub-poverty
wages, no right to organize, no right to overtime pay,
no health insurance, no benefits at all -- are our everyday
reality. And yet Taco Bell treats us as if we had nothing
whatsoever to do with their industry. We have asked
Taco Bell if they can guarantee to their customers that
the tomatoes in their tacos were not picked by slave
labor, and they have responded with silence.”
“Taco Bell has a policy that it will not buy food
from contractors that mistreat animals,” continued
Benitez. “All we are asking is that they have
the same policy for humans...”
That's right -- It's the CIW protest at YUM Brands annual shareholder meeting in Louiville, KY, where workers and allies were calling on Taco Bell's parent company to recognize its responsibility for human rights in its supply chain, as it has in regards to animal rights!
Click here to see all the CIW photos and a report from the action
| MORE GREAT ACTIONS FROM ACROSS THE COUNTRY - 5/03! |
IT
WAS LABOR DAY IN MIAMI... which could only
mean it's time for a Taco Bell protest (photo, R)! In an exciting -- and extremely creative -- Mayday rally
in Miami, dozens of people turned out for a rush-hour
action at a downtown Taco Bell in support of the boycott. Click
here to see a gallery of shots from the protest.
ALSO... "Worker exposes reality of labor exploitation" Middle Tennessee State University Online News. "As part of their ongoing action against
Taco Bell, Solidarity hosted a presentation on slavery
and inhumanity in corporate farming yesterday, featuring
a migrant farm worker from Immokalee, Fla..." Click
here to read more of this great article
ALSO... Report from Tucson Boycott committee:
"More than 40 protesters joined together for the Tucson action for Farmworker Awareness Week on April 4, 2003. Members of Derechos Humanos, various MEChA chapters, Jobs with Justice, Tucson Veterans for Peace, Women in Black, and various student, union, and activist participants showed up for free tacos and horchata..." Read more about the action in this article from the University of Arizona's "Daily Wildcat" by clicking here!
| 3,000 PROTEST OUTSIDE WASHINGTON, DC TACO BELL- 4/03! |
Over 3,000 people crowded into the street
in front of the 14th & U Taco Bell in Washington
on Sunday, April 13, 2003 (the crowd bends left around
the corner at the upper right of the picture...). The
first stop in the Latin American Soldarity Coalition
"March of Shame" through downtown DC rocked
in protest over the sweatshop conditions in Florida's
fields, aided by another powerful perfomance of the
boycott anthem "Hunger Days" by JG & HavikenHayes
of Over the Counter Intelligence.
A contingent of 34 CIW members who made the trek from Florida to lead the Taco Bell stop on the march took up their position in front of the restaurant, with a mountain of press recording the action.
Click here for more photos from
an unforgettable weekend!
And click
here to download "Hunger Days"
| GRAND VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY BANNER DROPS - 4/03! |
Banners are dropping all over Grand Valley State University (Michigan)!
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| "A MODERN UNDERGROUND RAILROAD..." |
"A MODERN UNDERGROUND RAILROAD..." That's how the
Sunday, Dec. 1, 2002, edition of the St.
Petersburg Times characterized
CIW anti-slavery efforts in a great, front-page story
by Candace Rondeaux. You can find that story (and some
beautiful photos, like the one outside CIW headquarters
on the right) by clicking
here.
Also in Sunday's edition, opinion columnist Bill Maxwell penned a powerful challenge to Florida's Governor Bush and consumers in general to use their influence to finally end peonage in Florida's fields. He writes: "If the governor and other state officials did their job, many citrus and tomato moguls would be jailed and fined for perpetuating a system that lets subcontrators abuse workers." See the rest of the Bill Maxwell column here.
And click here to read our own CIW rant on the sixth case of slavery in South Florida in the past five years. An excerpt: "Only by making those who profit most from farmworkers' exploited labor pay the true cost of harvesting this country's crops will we be able, once and for all, to close the book on America's 'Harvest of Shame'...."
| CIW CHRISTMAS PARTY 2002! |
CIW
CHRISTMAS PARTY LIGHTS UP IMMOKALEE!... Over
1,500 people attended the CIW's pre-Christmas party,
enjoying music, games, and some serious business, as
CIW members continued to sign cards to be delivered
to Taco Bell's headquarters by the workers who will
be fasting in Irvine this coming February. Already over
2,000 cards have been signed!
Click here for more photos and a report from a great party!
| MASSIVE SLAVERY RING BROUGHT TO JUSTICE, NOVEMBER 2002! |
LANDMARK
VICTORY AGAINST HUGE MODERN-DAY SLAVERY OPERATION
IN LAKE PLACID, FLORIDA!... After a two-year
investigation by the CIW -- in collaboration with
the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of
Justice -- the leaders of a violent and coercive slavery
operation employing up to 600 farmworkers were found
guilty in federal court of
charges including: conspiracy to hold workers
in involuntary servitude, extortion, and use of a
firearm during a violent crime.
The three Central Florida citrus employers not only held orange pickers in slavery, but also pistol-whipped and held at gunpoint drivers for a van service who were attempting to give farmworkers rides out of town.
The men were sentenced in November, 2002, to a total of 34 years in jail and ordered to forfeit $3 million in assets obtained illegally through their operation. News of the verdict went out on the AP wire. See one of the articles, "Conviction may help working conditions," by clicking here.
The Lake Placid conviction was the sixth slavery operation in South Florida to be brought to justice in the past six years. For more history and analysis of the ongoing problem of modern day slavery in Florida's fields, click on the links below:
St. Petersburg Times Op/Ed: " If the governor and other state officials did their job, many citrus and tomato moguls would be jailed and fined for perpetuating a system that lets subcontractors abuse workers." See the rest of the Bill Maxwell column here.
BBC World News radio report on Slavery (8 minutes on CIW anti-slavery campaign, starting at the 15:12 mark): "Trafficking for Labour" (programme three)
Labor Notes: "Florida employers guilty of slavery" (or, click here for Spanish version)
| SEND AN E-CARD TO HELP FIGHT SLAVERY! |
Anti-slavery International of London, "the world's oldest human rights organization," is a partner with the CIW in an international effort to bring modern-day slavery operations to justice and to bring public attention to the continued existence of debt-bondage. They have launched an impressive "e-card" campaign focusing on four recent cases of modern-day slavery from Holland, Kuwait, Italy, and... one from right here in Immokalee, Florida.
Visit their website at stophumantraffic.org,
or click
here to see "Ricardo's" story of forced
labor in the tomato fields of Southwest Florida. While you're there, please feel free to send one of
their e-cards to a friend or family member to help
spread word of this important campaign. All you have
to do is click on "send an e-card" in the
box in the upper right corner of Ricardo's story,
and the rest is easy!
| NORTHEAST MINI-TOUR, OCTOBER, 2002! |
Check
out all the action -- with daily reports, including
photos, news, media links, and some GREAT videos --
from this wildly successful tour. Travel with CIW members
as they lead protests and teach-ins from Washington,
DC, to Amherst, MA. Highlights include the "Breaking
the Media Blackout" conference in Philly, a joint
presentation with Eric Schlosser (author, "Fast
Food Nation") at U Penn, exciting actions in Washington,
Philly, Boston and New York, and visits to some of this
country's most important historical landmarks. Don't
miss this great report!
Click here
to go to the Northeast Mini-Tour Daily Updates page!
| FAIR FOOD SUMMIT A SUCCESS! |
"FAIR
FOOD SUMMIT" A SUCCESS!... Students and
young people from across the country - and even two
from Canada - joined CIW members for a Thanksgiving,
2002, weekend of "Harvesting Justice in Immokalee".
The agenda included: working in the fields, meeting
on campaign strategy, learning about CIW history, and,
of 
course,
squeezing in a lively local Taco Bell protest!
The summit was a great experience for workers and student allies, who have been taking the boycott to Taco Bell in their communities, especially through the recent victories in the "Boot the Bell" campaign, removing Taco Bells from college campuses. victories). Click here for more photos from the summit.
| CIW LAUNCHES SIGNATURE CARD CAMPAIGN! |
CIW
LAUNCHES SIGNATURE CAMPAIGN IN IMMOKALE!... At a meeting before taking a new signature card campaign
to the streets (left), CIW members see that nothing
is impossible when we all work together.
Later, members went into the labor camps, churches, and streets of Immokalee to collect signatures on a card telling Taco Bell CEO Emil Brolick that, "Our poverty is the basis of your company's wealth, and we are saying 'Enough is enough'!" The card calls on Taco Bell to bring about three-part talks between growers, the CIW, and Taco Bell, as well as to help bring about an immediate raise by paying more for Florida tomatoes. Already, over 1,400 cards have been signed!
| BOYCOTTERS TAKE GAME 5 OF WORLD SERIES, OCTOBER 2002! |
BOYCOTTERS
TAKE GAME 5 OF WORLD SERIES!... Protesters
1, Taco Bell 0 -- If
you watch baseball, you probably saw the Taco Bell target
floating in the cove where homerun balls splash down
outside the San Fancisco Giants' stadium. Seems our
favorite fast-food giant was trying to snag some free
national TV airtime off the World Series (as if they
didn't have $220 million to spend on airtime already...).
Well, you probably ALSO saw a little surprise visit
by San Francisco boycotters during the Fox broadcast
of Game Five, getting our own message out to 11 million
viewers about how Taco Bell makes its money (the banner
in the left upper corner reads: "Taco Bell Exploits
Farmworkers - www.ciw-online.org")! Kudos to the
SF boycott committee for taking on Taco Bell's little
floaty free-advertising ploy.
| FOUR SCARY DAYS OF ACTION! |
REPORTS
CONTINUE TO COME IN FROM FOUR DAYS OF ACTION, HALLOWEEN,
2002...
Reports have made their way in from Gainesville (FL), Portland, Tampa, Chicago, Norman (OK), Madison (WI), Austin, College Park (MD), Ft. Myers (FL), and more. Keep sending in photos and reports, and we'll post 'em!
Click
here for more photos from the Halloween night action
in Ft. Myers (LEFT)
Click
here for a great DC Indymedia story on the University
of Maryland action
| NEW FREEDOM BUS TOUR HITS ST. PETE! |
Nov. 26,
2002: The CIW
joined the Kensington Welfare Rights Union,
the Tampa Bay Action Group, and many
other organizations fom across the 
country
on the "New Freedom Bus Tour"
for their St. Petersburg stop, where we combined a classic
Taco Bell protest with a march through downtown St.
Pete.
The bus tour and the march are a call for respect of our basic social and economic rights as defined in the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights, including the right to a living wage, the right to decent housing, and the right to organize on the job. You can learn more about the tour (including daily updates on their travels) and about the UN Declaration on Human Rights at the KWRU web site by clicking here.
Click here for more photos from the St. Petersburg action.
| SUMMERTIME (2002) BOYCOTT ACTIONS SPREAD ACROSS THE COUNTRY |
TACO PROTESTS KEEP
POPPING UP ALL OVER!.. Protests
like this one here (below) from the first week of August
in Portland, Oregon, have continued 
non-stop
over the summer. From Florida to California, allies
across the country have kept the heat on Taco Bell all
summer long! Click
here for a quick review of some of the summer's highlights.
P.S... You don't necessarily have to protest to make your voice heard. This summer, 842 campers at Justice and Peace camps across the country sent postcards to Taco Bell in support of the strike -- and took more cards home to share with their family and friends! That is some powerful support. As one 14-year old camper wrote in a personal note to Taco Bell CEO Emil Brolick: "I, personally, won't return to Taco Bell until something has been done to benefit the Immokalee Workers. Oh big deal, right? One teenage girl from Ohio stops eating at Taco Bell, what does that mean to you? It should mean a lot, because this 'one teenage girl' has many teenage friends, and a numerable amount of them refuse to eat at Taco Bell." My goodness... no matter how cold your little CEO heart, that's got to hurt. In the battle between corporations and the rest of us, that's one camper we're happy to have on our side!
| CIW ACTION AT MAY, 2002, SHAREHOLDER MEETING, LOUISVILLE, KY |
FACE OFF BETWEEN CIW AND YUM BRANDS AT ANNUAL SHAREHOLDERS MEETING: Click here for photos and report on the battle for fair food between the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and Tricon Global.
CIW
Message to Shareholders: "Farm
Worker Poverty = Fast Food Profits. You Can Change This
Equation. Fair Food Now!"
Press coverage of the Kentucky action was good. Click here to read a great article in the Louisville Courier-Journal.
| ENTERTAINMENT NEWS!... CIW STYLE |
"ENTERTAINMENT
NEWS"... CIW STYLE!... CIW members have been
making the celebrity circuit this summer, 2002, in the
never-ending effort to spread the word of the Taco Bell
boycott and the struggle for fair labor conditions in
Florida's fields. CIW members met with actor Danny Glover
in Miami (left) at a labor rights forum that brought
union and community groups together from across South
Florida, while the CIW delegation's table (right) at
the OzzFest stop in West Palm Beach drew a steady crowd
of concert-goers looking for some social justice with
their heavy metal.
The CIW was invited to table the concert by OzzFest headliner System of a Down, an LA-based band that, like Rage Against the Machine, isn't afraid to mix politics and music.
| PRESS CONFERENCE TO PROTEST PENDING LINK OF POLICE AND INS, APRIL 2002 |
CIW,
a dozen Florida-based organizations hold press conference
in Miami to announce opposition to Ashcroft initiative
to link police, INS...
On
Wednesday, 4/24/02, the CIW traveled to Miami to join
nearly a dozen other organizations -- including Florida
ACLU, SEIU, the Miami Workers Center, and the Florida
Immigrant Advocacy Center -- to denounce the Attorney
General's proposal to convert state and local police
into immigration agents. The press conference hammered
home the clear message that the state of Florida is
uniting -- immigrants and citizens alike -- in opposition
to this potentially disastrous policy change.
To see the Miami
Herald article from the press conference, click
here.
To see the Nuevo Herald article, (Spanish), click
here.
* Click on this link to see photos from the press conference and read the statement signed by the CIW and more than 100 other organizations across the country opposing the initiative (with up-to-date list of signatories).
| CIW STATUE OF LIBERTY HEADS TO SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM, MARCH 2002 |
CIW''S
LADY LIBERTY HEADS TO SMITHSONIAN IN WASHINGTON, DC... to be part of the permanent collection at Smithsonian's
National Museum of American History!...
"'It's wonderful and it's evocative. It's a democratic movement for a political voice and it's great because it reminds us of some of the core values we think of as Americans and the freedom to participate,' said Barbara Clark Smith, museum curator of social history." - Naples Daily News, 3/28/02 -
Click on the following link for the whole story: "Smithsonian to collect farmworkers' version of Statue of Liberty"
| NATIONAL THREE DAYS OF ACTION, DECEMBER 2001 |
THREE DAYS OF ACTION -- A Roaring Success!
"Fire-eaters, and stilt-walkers, and giant Liberty puppets.. Oh my!"
This was the scene (above) at 2:00 am Sunday (12/2), outside of the Taco Bell on University Ave. in Gainesville, FL, where farmworkers from the CIW joined Univ. of FL students and local residents at an incredibly spirited, carnival-like protest wrapping up Gainesville's Three Days of Action.
Click here to see photos and reports from cities around the country
from the Three Days of Action, including the CIW
members' own "24 Hours of Taco Bell Protests".
All in all, over 40 communities and campuses across
the country -- including
Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta, Boston,
Jacksonville, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Tampa, Knoxville,
Austin, Boulder (CO), Northampton (MA), Milwaukee,
Tallahassee, Norman (OK), and more -- joined
farmworkers from the CIW in protests to hold Taco
Bell accountable for the sweatshop conditions in the
fields where their tomatoes are grown and picked
| MINI-TOUR, OCTOBER 2001 |
The Taco Bell "Mini-Tour", a joint venture
of the CIW and the Student/Farmworker Alliance, was
a huge success, as CIW and SFA members crossed the country
in just under three weeks, meeting with boycott committee
leaders and the general public in cities along the route
of the postponed Taco Bell Truth Tour.
The "mini-tourists", shown here visiting the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN (the place of the fatal shooting of Dr. Martin Luther King and today the site of the National Civil Rights Museum) kept a photo diary of their experience, which you should not miss! Click here to see their day-by-day dispatches
| PROTEST OVER SHERIFF'S INITIATIVE |
More
than 1,000 protesters call on Collier County Sheriff
Don Hunter... to explain why he is asking state
and federal officials for the authority to enforce federal
immigration laws.
The CIW strongly protested the Sheriff's initiative,explaining
that combining police and immigration enforcement would
discourage immigrant crime victims from seeking police
assistance and thereby effectively eliminate police
protection in the immigrant community. CIW members also
argued that such a change in police authority would
result in a certain increase in racial profiling. Click here for the full story.
| PHOTOS OF RECENT CIW ACTIVITIES, JANUARY 2002 |
If you liked the photos from the CIW New Years party, wait 'til you see these pictures from the CIW's annual "Year of the Worker" block party:
Fernando Arau, sporting
an attractive Boycott t-shirt and CIW cap,
entertains the crowd (Sunday, Jan. 20, 2002)
And click here for photos from the CIW New Year's party in Immokalee (12/30/01)!
| LETTERS TO TACO BELL |
Taco
Bell has been getting some pretty interesting letters
of late... More and more, people of good faith
are weighing in and letting Taco Bell know that they
think it is time for the fast food giant to recognize
the importance of the farmworkers' contribution to their
business success.
We have a few of the latest letters here on the site, including letters from Cardinal Roger Mahoney of the Los Angeles, Bishop Jaime Soto of Orange County, and one from the the CIW itself, delivered by the Irvine Boycott Committee on September 24th, the day that the Truth Tour would have culminated with a large scale protest outside of Taco Bell headquarters.
Stay tuned to the letters section, because there are many more to come -- including one very important letter from some concerned investors that will usher in a new front in the boycott campaign.
Click here to see recent letters.
CIW
AT SOA PROTEST, NOVEMBER 2001 |
CIW
joins thousands at School of the Americas Protest... Check out the photos from this year's SOA
protest, where CIW members added their voice to the
call for a US foreign policy based on respect of human
rights. Click
here to go to the photo page.
As CIW member Max Perez said to the crowd following the annual procession to the Ft. Benning gates, "Our members are immigrant workers from Mexico, Guatemala, and Haiti, countries where millions of people have been forced to escape political oppression at the hands of graduates of the SOA, only to find economic oppression in this country. We must fight oppression wherever it is, from the streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to the fields of Immokalee, Florida."
TACO
BELL SUPPLIER IN HOT WATER |
Taco Bell supplier 6L's is the subject of a court order requiring the company to respect its workers' right to receive visitors while living in company-owned housing. Click here to see the emergency temporary injunction granted on May 16, 2002 by a Florida judge.