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!:
The day began with CIW members and Tampa/St. Pete area allies gathering at the Taco Bell on the corner of 5th Ave N and 34th St, a restaurant we've made a virtual home away from home over the past year and a half...
... but the protest really took off once the KWRU New Freedom Bus Tour pulled up and joined in! Together we filled the streets on both sides of the corner restaurant with chanting people, colorful signs, flyers, and music.
The signs included some powerful posters provided by the bus riders, like this one above, "Poverty is a human rights violation".
Finally, it was time to move on to downtown St. Pete, where, before the march began, members of KWRU, CIW, the Brazilian Landless Peasants Movement (MST), and members of a people's organization from Central America did a local cable show on the bus tour and on the impact of free trade here in the US and throughout the hemisphere.
Then it was on to City Hall and the march through downtown St. Pete.
The sign says it all...
Thanks to the Tampa Bay Action Group (TBAG) for organizing a powerful event...
And, again, these signs are what the march was all about: the rigth to health care, the right to housing, and the right to food.
