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If you are interested in bringing the Taco Bell Boycott to your
school or community, contact the Student/Farmworker Alliance (sfw_alliance@hotmail.com)
or the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (workers@ciw-online.org)
for more information and materials that you can use for organizing
in your area, including:
Here
are some of the materials available to bring the Taco Bell boycott
to your community:
- Organizing Packet
- Media Packet
- Posters
- Flyers
- Postcards
- Bumperstickers, Pins,
T-shirts and more!
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| CIW
Testifies in US 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.
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| More
great actions from across the country (5/03)! |
 Miami,
FL
IT WAS LABOR DAY IN
MIAMI... which could only mean it's time for a Taco Bell
protest! 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.
 Murfreesboro,
TN
"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
 Tucson,
AZ
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!
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| Grand
Valley State University Banner Drops! 4/03 |
Banners
are dropping all over Grand Valley State University (Michigan)!
A lesson before dining?
|
Students at Grand Valley State University in Michigan organized
four separate banner drops last week, just warming up for
the labor solidarity actions this week (3/31-4/4) that are
taking place on campuses across the country.
|
The GVSU students say they'll be tabling and organizing
a Taco Bell action this week...
|
... as well as meeting with administration officials to
discuss just how GVSU can justify doing business with Taco
Bell while Taco Bell insists on turning a blind eye to human
rights abuses in its suppliers' operations. With energy
and commitment like what we see in these photos, there's
little doubt about the answer to the question posed in this
banner!
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| "A
modern underground railroad..." |
"A modern day underground
railroad ..." That's
how the Sunday, Dec. 1, 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 rig) 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'...."
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| 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!
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| 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 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 (see below
for details on the latest victories).
Click
here for more photos from the summit.
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| CIW
Launches signature card campaign |
CIW launches
signature campaign in Immokalee! 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!
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| Boycotters
take Game Five of World Series |
Boycotters
take Game 5 of the 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")!
If you didn't get to see it live, check out this
link to the SF indymedia site for a report
and eye-witness video as the San Fancisco boycott committee
takes on Taco Bell's little floaty free-advertising ploy.
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| Four
days of scary action! |
 REPORTS
CONTINUE TO COME IN FROM FOUR DAYS OF ACTION ...
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 to see the "Daily Texan" story on the action
in Austin.
Click
here for a great DC Indymedia story on the University of Maryland
action
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| New
Freedom bus tour hits St. Pete! |
Tuesday, Nov. 26,
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.
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| SUMMERTIME
BOYCOTT ACTIONS SPREAD ACROSS THE COUNTRY |
Taco Bell protests keep popping up all
over...! Protests likethis 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.
 Feel
like YOU
would like to contribute an action to Taco Bell's long, hot summer
of protests, but don't know how to get started? Contact us at tbtruthtour@aol.com
and we'll help you out. Or if you've already held an action that
we don't know about, send us a report and photos and we'll post
them as soon as we can!
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!
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| CIW
ACTION AT SHAREHOLDER MEETING, LOUISVILLE, KY |
Face
off betweeen 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,
and here
for coverage on the AP wire.
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| ENTERTAINMENT
NEWS!... CIW STYLE |
"Entertainment
News" - CIW style...! CIW
members have been making the celebrity circuit this summer 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.
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| PRESS
CONFERENCE TO PROTEST PENDING LINK OF POLICE AND INS |
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).
* Click below to see
a 4/5/02 article from the San Antonio Express entitled: "Law
enforcers wary of INS job; Local agencies reluctant to enforce immigration
laws".
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| CIW STATUE
OF LIBERTY HEADS NORTH TO SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM |
CIW's Lady Liberty heads north to 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 link below for the whole story: "Smithsonian
to collect farmworkers' version of Statue of Liberty
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| NATIONAL
THREE DAYS OF ACTION ON TACO BELL BOYCOTT |
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
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 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.
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| PROTEST
OVER SHERIFF'S INITIATIVE |
Here, 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 fed eral
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.
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| PHOTOS OF
RECENT CIW ACTIVITIES |
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 Years party in Immokalee
(12/30/01)!
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 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.
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|
Postcard Front
|
Postcard Back
|
There's a new way to let Taco Bell know what you think about the
sweatshop conditions in the tomato fields of Florida -- a postcard
that you can send yourself or email us and order a whole bunch to
help spread the word about the boycott.
Click here to see the postcard,
read the text, and see how you can get cards sent to you for use
in your community.
| TACO BELL
BOYCOTT IN BRIEF |
 The
Coalition of Immokalee Workers is calling on Taco Bell to use its
considerable leverage as a major buyer of Florida tomatoes
to help bring about real changes in the wages and working conditions
of the farmworkers who pick those tomatoes... (read
more...)
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LA banner drop (Glendale) August 2001
Endorsements, both national
and local, are starting to pour in. Click here for a list of the
endorsements to date... (read
more)
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 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."
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| 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.
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|
ACTION ARCHIVE: APRIL 1, 2001 - AUGUST, 2001
|
There is just too much to even begin to describe in
such a small place, so here is an idea of
the actions you'll see by clicking
here (including the official declaration of the boycott in Orlando,
the May 1st protests around Florida, and the original "Long,
Hot Summer" of 2001.
'
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