Exactly six years and six days ago, farmworkers from an isolated and deeply impoverished community in southwest Florida began a journey to change the food industry in America from the bottom up. After years of local struggle for respect and fair wages, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers launched a nationwide boycott against fast-food giant Taco Bell on April 1, 2001 despite the seemingly improbable odds of success.
However, over the course of the four-year boycott, the CIW's local fight blossomed into a full-fledged national movement bringining together Immokalee's workers with an ever-growing array of dedicated consumer allies in a bid for justice and dignity in Florida's fields. |
Two years after the historic Taco Bell victory, which paved the way for significant improvements in the lives of thousands of tomato pickers, this idea -- the notion of a food industry that doesn't rely on the endless exploitation of farmworkers -- continues to steadily gather momentum. Now, it's the world's largest restaurant chain, McDonald's, that's being asked to embrace this powerful idea. For the workers toiling in Immokalee's fields day after day, two years of waiting has proved more than enough. Indeed, this is an idea whose time has come.
So it was with an acute sense of purpose and urgency that dozens of workers made their way in the pre-dawn darkness to the CIW center in order to make final preparations and board the bus for a cross-country tour behind the Golden Arches. |