The CIW is today spear-heading the Taco Bell boycott. But before we launched the national boycott in April of 2001, we had been organizing locally for many years in an effort to modernize labor relations in Florida's fields, improve wages and working conditions for our members, and eliminate modern-day slavery.
To learn more about the history of the Coalition, you can go to the CIW site where you'll find all the non-Taco Bell info on the Coalition from 1995 to 2001, including past CIW campaigns, Press Archives, Photo Galleries, and more!
1997 General Strike Immokalee, Florida
Or, you can simply click on some of the links here below to go directly to the pages from the CIW site that interest you... just remember to hit the back button on your browser to return to the boycott site!:
FAIR FOOD SUMMIT - HARVESTING JUSTICE IN IMMOKALEE
The summit began, appropriately, in the fields, where participants formed teams and picked tomatoes and oranges for a day... or, at least, tried.
The look says it all... This team of three make it back to town well after dark having picked six bins of oranges (about 6,000 pounds of high quality Florida citrus), which translates into about $40 ($13 dollars each)... and a new appreciation for "unskilled" labor.
Since it was a little difficult for some of the participants to sit the next day... we came up with a new form of cooperative, full-body support to deal with the post-harvest aches and pains.
Not really... this dynamic was actually part of a full, two-day schedule of reflection and action on the Taco Bell boycott.
Keeping with CIW tradition, participants learned more about the CIW's organizing history,...
... about our approach to education and leadership development...
... and about the history of student movements.
The majority of the time, though, was spent in planning, working together to forge strategies for a national action in the Spring that combines the different strengths of workers and young people and promises to make Taco Bell executives wish they had dealt with the boycott a long time ago...
Then, finally, it was time for action, preparing signs, art, and noisemakers...
... and hitting the streets at a Ft. Myers Taco Bell (which has the great misfortune of being the closest Taco Bell to Immokalee...)
The protest lasted into the early evening...
...when the summit came to an end. But not before these participants had the opportunity to put their heads together one more time...
The summit was a huge success, with the forging of stronger bonds and more exciting strategies than ever before -- just what we will need to propel the boycott even higher in the coming year! Stay tuned for more details as plans for the Spring action are revealed!
