wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Tomato pickers end Taco Bell protest

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Note #7623 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Tomato pickers end Taco Bell protest
03132
March 7, 2003

Tomato pickers end Taco Bell protest

Supporters persuade workers to drop hunger strike after 10 days
 
by Evan Silverstein

LOUISVILLE - Prompted by pleas from religious leaders and the start of the
Lenten season, protesters ended a hunger strike outside Taco Bell's corporate
headquarters in Irvine, CA, after 10 days. 

At least 50 members of the Florida-based Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW)
symbolically broke bread with religious leaders and backers during an Ash
Wednesday prayer service.

Several Presbyterians were among those who joined the hunger strikers, along
with sympathetic students, farmers and other Christians from around the
nation. The farm workers started their drive back to Florida Wednesday night.

"The workers collectively made the decision (to disband the protest) out of
respect for the religious community's promise that they would continue the
struggle and walk with them in this," said the Rev. Noelle Damico, the
national coordinator of the PC(USA)'s participation in the Taco Bell boycott.

Damico said the workers' local Presbyterian supporters have included
representatives of Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles; First
Presbyterian Church in Anaheim, CA; and St. Mark Presbyterian Church in
Newport, Beach, CA. Those congregations have sponsored forums on the farm
workers' plight and provided meals for non-fasting protesters. Gatherings in
support of the Irvine hunger strike have been held in cities around the
country. 

The CIW has targeted Taco Bell, one of the biggest buyers of Florida
tomatoes, in hope that the fast-food giant will pressure growers to improve
the pickers' pay and working conditions. The workers make about $7,500 a year
and have no healthcare insurance. The federal Labor Department says their
income, adjusted for inflation, actually declined 10 percent between 1989 and
1998. 

Last year's General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) endorsed the
boycott and called for Taco Bell to start a serious dialogue with its tomato
supplier and representatives of the coalition. 

The religious leaders who called for an end to the hunger strike included the
PC(USA) stated clerk, the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick. They made the request in
a letter in which they also expressed concern about the strikers' health and
pledged to spread news of the struggle to their congregations. 

"As Taco Bell has not responded to your plea," Kirkpatrick wrote in a letter
dated March 3, "I ask you, with great respect, to break your fast on Ash
Wednesday so that you might regain your physical strength."

During the strike, which began Feb. 24, one Immokalee worker was hospitalized
with pneumonia after being outside in the rain and cold. Two other protesters
were treated for symptoms related to the fast. In addition, some fasters
vomited and felt faint, Damico said. A doctor and nurse at the scene checked
the participants' blood pressure and vital signs daily. 
 
"Your great sacrifice has demonstrated your commitment to seeking dialogue
with Taco Bell," Kirkpatrick wrote, "and also your commitment to embrace
non-violence in seeking such dialogue - even at great risk to yourselves." 

The workers got similar letters from the United Church of Christ (UCC), the
National Farm Ministry (NFWM), the National Council of Churches (NCC) and
Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, the archbishop of Los Angeles.  

Excerpts from the letters were read during an Ash Wednesday service outside
Taco Bell headquarters. 

The picketers said they don't believe their efforts were in vain. 

'This (was) not a waste of time," Gerardo Reyes Chavez, 25, a tomato picker
from Immokalee, FL, told The Los Angeles Times. "The time that we work in the
fields and (employers) rob us is wasted time." 

Damico, a UCC minister who also represented the NCC, said of the protest: "I
think it was a great success. "Remember, in a witness such as this, there's
always two audiences. One is Taco Bell. The other is Taco Bell's customers.  

"Every single day people just driving by would stop, families from the area
would bring blankets. People were moved by this." 

The fast-food giant and its parent company, Yum Brands Inc., maintain that
they have no role to play in what they describe as a dispute between
suppliers and their workers. 

A delegation of six religious leaders, two farm workers and two children
approached Taco Bell offices but were turned away by guards.

Damico said she was denied permission to leave the letters in the lobby, so
she and some of the others slid letters under the door and then offered a
prayer.

The group later went to a Catholic center in nearby Orange, CA, for a meal of
bean soup, tortillas and fruit. 

"We do believe the coalition's efforts are misdirected at our company,"
Laurie Gannon, a spokeswoman for Taco Bell, which operates 6,500 U.S.
restaurants, told the Reuters news service. "The farm workers do not work for
Taco Bell. They work for Six L's Packing Co., one of the many farms that we
get our tomatoes from." 

The national consumer boycott started in 2001.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers is trying to persuade the company to pay
the growers one cent more per pound, an increase the coalition believes would
be passed along to the pickers, who earn 40 cents to 50 cents per 32-pound
bucket. The requested increase would raise the pickers' per-bucket pay by 60
to 80 percent.

More information about the boycott is available at workers' coalition Web
site, www.ciw-online.org, the PC(USA) site, www.pcusa.org/boycott, the UCC
site, www.ucc.org/justice/boycotts/tb.htm, and the National Farm Worker
Ministry site, www.nfwm.org. 
 

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