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!
