wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Justice is Yum!my

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ECUNET.ORG>]

Note #8670 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05145
March 14, 2005

Justice is Yum!my

Farmworkers, supporters revel in long-awaited boycott victory
 
by Evan Silverstein

LOUISVILLE - With giant puppets and enthusiastic supporters beaming under
yellow "victory" hats, a group of Florida farmworkers on Saturday turned a
gray Kentucky afternoon into a colorful celebration of its recent landmark
agreement with Yum! Brands, Inc.

	The Louisville-based worldwide fast-food conglomerate announced on
March 8 that it will pay 1 cent more for each pound of tomatoes it buys for
use in its 6,500 Taco Bell restaurants and will buy only from growers who
agree to pass the penny surcharge to the field workers. 

	In return, the workers called off a three-year national consumer
boycott of Taco Bell, transforming what was to be a protest rally outside
Yum! headquarters into a spirited victory celebration in front of the
national offices of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

	"I'm thrilled by the celebration," said the Rev. Phil Lloyd-Sidle,
pastor of James Lees Memorial Presbyterian Church in Louisville. "I don't
think our generation gets to see many victories of this nature. I've not
experienced many moments like this ... in which workers win demands from very
large corporations."

	Cold temperatures and threatening skies didn't dampen the spirits of
about 500 supporters who turned out to celebrate the accord with the
farmworkers. 

	The agreement will affect more than 1,000 workers who harvest tomatos
for Yum! suppliers.

	Workers who now earn 40-45 cents for each 32-pound bucket of tomatoes
they harvest will soon make at least 72 cents per bucket - an increase of 60
to 80 percent. The additional penny will help lift some of the nation's
lowest-paid workers out of poverty.

	Latin music and street theater highlighted the daylong festival.
Eight-foot stick figures and brightly colored puppets were hoisted skyward to
help depict the workers' struggle and eventual victory against low wages, no
benefits and, in the most extreme cases, slavery. Other celebrants wore
bright yellow makeshift hats or carried placards with "Victory!" scrawled on
them in red paint.

	Words of praise and congratulations for the workers poured from
PC(USA) officials and leaders of community and worker groups across the
country. Many called on industry leaders to improve living and working
conditions, wages and health care for all workers in the fields everywhere.

	"We need to unite ... everyplace across this great nation of ours, to
bring about victories for farmworkers every single day," said Arturo S.
Rodriguez, president of the United Farm Workers of America (UFWA).

	Participants in the celebration included Presbyterian clergy and lay
members and other people of faith, representatives of human rights groups,
community grassroots organizations, students and national farmworker
alliances, such as the UFWA. 

	Kerry Kennedy, a founder of the Sen. Robert F. Kennedy Memorial
Center for Human Rights, joined in the celebration, but a scheduling conflict
kept actor and activist Martin Sheen from attending.

	"Their housing should be decent, their wages should be living, and
their children should be able to go to school," said Kennedy, a daughter of
the late senator.

	The PC(USA), from the beginning a staunch ally of the workers and
supporter of the Taco Bell boycott, also played a key role in brokering a
settlement. 

	The church helped arrange meetings between Yum! executives and
members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a Florida-based group of
farmworkers who sponsored the boycott and negotiated with leaders of the
mega-corporation, which also owns Long John Silvers, Kentucky Fried Chicken,
Pizza Hut and A&W Root Beer restaurants.

	The denomination's 214th General Assembly in 2002 endorsed the
boycott and called for negotiations between Taco Bell, its tomato suppliers
and representatives of the CIW. An eight-mile protest march to Yum!
headquarters last year started at the Presbyterian Center. PC(USA)
representatives spoke during a news conference last week announcing the
agreement. 

	Former President Jimmy Carter said in a prepared statement that the
farmworkers can celebrate the model of corporate responsibility that their
movement has created. Carter assisted in discussions with Yum! and the
workers through the Carter Center, which works for human rights around the
world.

Among others backers of the boycott were the AFL-CIO, the National Council of
Churches, the United Methodist Church and such celebrities as Sheen, actress
Susan Sarandon and singer Bonnie Raitt. 

"I now call on others in the industry to follow Taco Bell's lead to help the
tomato farmworkers," Carter said in his statement circulated by Yum!

During the victory celebration, the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, the stated
clerk of the General Assembly of the PC(USA), called the occasion "a great
day for God's justice in the world" and reaffirmed the denomination's
commitment to justice for the workers, many of whom are from Mexico,
Guatemala and Haiti.

"This is indeed a great day for farmworkers," said Kirkpatrick, who is widely
known by the tomato pickers as gringo grande. "It is a great day for the
Coalition of Immokalee Workers. It's even a great day for Yum! Brands. It's a
great day for Presbyterians and other groups that have supported this
endeavor. But most importantly, it is a great day for God's justice in the
world."

Supporters crammed under a white tent pitched on the soggy front lawn of the
Presbyterian Center. They crowded a stage, cheering and pumping their fists
in the air as Coalition members were introduced.

CIW leaders called the agreement with Yum!, the world's largest fast-food
company, an important first step in the continuing battle to advance human
rights throughout the fast-food industry. 

But they emphasized that the real fight against exploitation of farmworkers
is only starting.

	"This is an important victory for farmworkers, one that establishes a
new standard of social responsibility for the fast-food industry and makes an
immediate material change in the lives of workers," said Lucas Benitez, a CIW
co-founder. "This sends a clear challenge to other industry leaders. Systemic
change to ensure human rights for farmworkers is long overdue." 

Benitez said the Coalition will be choosing another company to target in the
"months ahead," but the next step is to work with Yum! to implement the pact.

The newly inked agreement, which both the CIW and Yum! called unprecedented,
also includes a code of conduct to ensure more humane labor standards at the
facilities of Taco Bell's Florida-based suppliers and a call to other large
buyers of fresh tomatoes to join Yum! in working toward change for
farmworkers.

The code specifically forbids forced or indentured labor in the tomato fields
- abuses the workers say are not unknown - and gives Yum! the right to
conduct unannounced inspections of suppliers. Yum! and the coalition will
jointly investigate allegations of code violations.

"We dare not stop this march forward" as long as there are farmworkers still
enslaved or being taken advantage of, said the Rev. Noelle Damico, a United
Church of Christ minister who coordinated the national boycott for the
PC(USA).

"If you're profiting from exploitation, you have a moral and ethical
responsibility to end that exploitation," she said. "We can do it together.
Taco Bell has shown that it can be done. That it must be done. Together you
and I and the corporation and the farmworkers are going to ensure that it
will be done."

Lowell Linder, a member of Crescent Hill Presbyterian Church in Louisville,
said he witnessed the intolerable conditions the workers live and work under
when he and a church group visited the small Florida city of Immokalee in
January.  

"They had every reason to boycott," Linder said. "The living conditions on a
day-to-day basis, crammed into small decrepit trailers at exorbitant prices,
just were amazing. ... The long working hours, the harsh working conditions."

Church-goers and college students were well-represented in the growing throng
of supporters of the boycott and the CIW demonstrations over the past four
years.

"Nothing is for free in this world, and especially in these kinds of
struggles," said Presbyterian Stephen Bartlett, who is the Latin America
liaison for Agricultural Missions, a ministry based in New York City.
Bartlett fasted for 10 days in 2003 as part of an anti-Taco Bell hunger
strike in Irvin, CA. "Every step needs sacrifice. There have been hunger
strikes. There have been long marches. There have been many, many zillions of
hours of organizing work."

For more information about the agreement, visit the Web site of the Coalition
of Immokalee Workers and the boycott page of the PC(USA) site.

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