wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] In speech as WARC chief,

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

Note #8950 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05537
Oct. 7, 2005

Kirkpatrick cites Taco Bell boycott 
as a victory in campaign for justice
  
Global economic system is a killer, Presbyterian tells WARC colleagues

by Peter Kenny
Ecumenical News International  

EVIAN, France - The world is being ripped apart by an economic system that
makes a mockery of the Bible's assurance that all people are created in the
image of God and should be treated with respect, says the president of the
World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC), the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick.  
  
	Kirkpatrick, the stated clerk of the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), spoke on Oct. 7 during the annual meeting here
of the executive committee of WARC, an alliance of 75 million Christians from
churches in 107 countries.

	In his address, Kirkpatrick noted that, since WARC's highest
governing body, its general council, met 15 months ago in Accra, Ghana,
tragic events have taken place in such places as New Orleans, Darfur in
Sudan, Iraq, Colombia, Bali and the London underground.    
  
	"The level of human suffering has just been incredible," Kirkpatrick
said. "At the same time, the forces driving the gap between the rich and
poor, destroying the planet, and causing thousands to die needlessly each day
of poverty and famine have only gotten worse." 

	Kirkpatrick said economic and environmental issues challenge "the
very integrity of our faith."

	He noted how the PC(USA) and other U.S. denominations joined in a
boycott of the fast-food chain, Taco Bell, owned by Yum! Brands of Louisville
- "the company many of you may know because they also operate Kentucky Fried
Chicken and Pizza Hut."

	Three years ago, Presbyterians in south Florida launched the boycott
to protest the living and employment conditions of migrant workers who
supplied tomatoes to Taco Bell.

	The denomination joined the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW),
urging members not to eat at Taco Bell. Most of the workers, Kirkpatrick
said, were undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Guatemala who had been
forced into such labor to keep their families from starvation - in part
because "global free trade agreements" had cost them the livelihoods they
used to have from small farms in their home countries. 

	He noted that the workers' pay - 45 cents for a 32-pound bucket of
tomatoes picked and delivered for processing - hadn't changed in more than 25
years. That wage is now worth one-third of what it was worth in 1980.  
  
	"All of this is a classic example of how the neo-liberal economic
system had conspired to make the rich richer and the poor more and more
destitute," Kirkpatrick said.	
  
	The boycott was controversial, and seemed for a long time to have
little effect. But the company eventually grew concerned about its image and
tried to get churches to repudiate the boycott.    
  
	But the churches stood firm. "That moral and faith-based stance of
the church is what caused the company to change, to agree to ... double the
(workers') wages ... and to work with the churches in helping these reforms
to become the norm in the fast-food industry," said Kirkpatrick.

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