wfn.org | Picking sides: GAC told about campaign to win support for Taco Bell boycott

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #7444 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

28-September-2002
02369

Picking sides

GAC told about campaign to win support for Taco Bell boycott

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE - The Worldwide Ministries Division (WMD) has outlined to the
General Assembly Council (GAC) the first steps it has taken in mobilizing
Presbyterians to boycott Taco Bell restaurants in support of Florida tomato
pickers.

The action, authorized by the General Assembly (GA) in June, was proposed by
the Presbytery of Tampa Bay as a way of seeking "farm worker justice."

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), an organization of tomato-pickers,
is in a dispute over wages and working conditions with Six L's Corp., a
distributor that supplies tomatoes to Taco Bell. The workers want the
restaurant chain to pay an additional penny per pound to Six L's. 
If that cent were passed along to the workers, it would double their
earnings. (Immokalee is town in Florida; its name rhymes with "broccoli.")

The Presbyterian boycott is aimed at 18- to 24-year-olds, Taco Bell's most
important consumer group, according to Gary Cook, who directs the
Presbyterian Hunger Program. He said the action will be promoted mainly over
the World Wide Web, an effective means of reaching people of that age group.

In support of the workers' group, the Presbyterian Church (USA) plans to
create a boycott monitoring committee and to rally support from
congregations, presbyteries and synods.

The PC(USA) also will support a shareholders' resolution against YUM! Foods
Corp., Taco Bell's parent company, introduced by the United Church of Christ;
and will launch a media campaign to give the denomination a voice in the
current debate about corporate responsibility.

"We haven't done any actions at this point," Cook told the Presbyterian News
Service after the report sailed through the GAC's WMD committee without any
questions. "We haven't called for a day for this-or-that. We think it is
important to build a critical mass of folks who ... are responsive to these
issues before we try to rally them."

Cook said CIW maintains that the workers' salaries haven't changed since
1978. They are paid $50 for picking and carrying two tons of tomatoes. "Taco
Bell has the power to change that ... and they have a responsibility to do
it," he said. "They're making large profits on the basis of the farm workers'
work."

That's not how Taco Bell's public relations director, Laurie Gannon, sees it.

She said Six L's is merely one of several fruit-and-vegetable brokers working
in Florida's open market for Taco Bell, which doesn't meddle in contract
disputes between its suppliers and workers. "We can't get involved, can't
mandate how they pay their workers. They are complying with state and federal
laws. It is the government's job to monitor that."

Gannon said Taco Bell executive have tried without success to get
documentation from CIW and Six L's.

She said it appears that Six L's is "not interested" in the wage-change
issue. "We're not in the tomato business," she said. "If Six L's wants to
charge us a penny more a pound, they can do that."

According to Gannon, Taco Bell's broker buys tomatoes daily on the basis of
the quality of the product - and "some days it is Six L's, some days not."

The denomination contends that Taco Bell's position is unethical, because
large buyers have clout to pressure suppliers to change policies. The PC(USA)
position statement says: "1) Taco Bell knows about and benefits from the
exploitative conditions under which tomatoes for their products are produced,
and, 2) Taco Bell has both the power and the moral responsibility to resolve
the inhumane conditions of workers through (a) negotiation with growers and
the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and (b) agreement to pay one penny more
per pound of tomatoes."

Farm workers asked the PC(USA) to support the national consumer boycott.

The Rev. Noelle Damico, the primary PC(USA) strategist for the boycott,
pointed to the denomination's 1995 statement, "God's Work in Our Hands," as
its rationale. It says "employees, employers and customers need each other,
depend upon each other, and owe each other help beyond the letter of the law.
 Our partners in work, even when we cannot see them or know them personally,
deserve our respect and our attention to their needs." It adds that the
PC(USA) should serve as a "catalyst" for conversations involving labor,
management and government.

Brokering such conversations among CIW and YUM!/Taco Bell/tomato growers is
also a boycott goal.

Gannon said there is no way to monitor the boycott's financial impact on the
corporation. She said she has fielded some phone calls from media and from
church members seeking information.

Cook said that his own emails and phone messages have changed since the end
of this year's GA, when many members didn't understand the church's position.
Now, he said, he is getting many expressions of support.

He said there is a movement on some college campuses to "Boot the Bell," as
students address corporate-responsibility questions and more college
food-service operations contract with restaurant chains.

"That is not our strategy," he said of the efforts to force the closings of
restaurants. "Our ... goal is not to shut down Taco Bell. It is to get them
to do the right thing - and then champion them for doing it."

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