Note #9170 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:
06132 Feb. 24, 2006
New 'Truth Tour' targets McDonald's
Tomato pickers taking to the streets to demand better pay, working conditions
by Evan Silverstein
LOUISVILLE - A group of Florida farmworkers will embark on a weeklong regional tour through the Southeast and Midwest next month to carry their struggle for higher wages and better working conditions to fast-food giant McDonald's.
The tour, which runs from March 25 to April 4, will include a peaceful daylong rally on April 1 in Chicago, the home city of the hamburger company's corporate offices.
A specific location has not been announced for the demonstration, which is expected to feature national human-rights speakers, religious leaders, student leaders, celebrities and musicians.
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a Florida-based group of farmworkers who pick the tomatoes McDonald's uses in its products, is sponsoring the event, the "McDonald's Truth Tour 2006: The Real Rights Tour."
The aim is to raise awareness of the egregious conditions in the Florida fields where tomatoes are picked for McDonald's, the world's largest restaurant chain.
"We want to make sure that the tomatoes that are consumed truly are free of slavery conditions," said Lucas Benitez, a CIW founder and a tour organizer.
The Coalition wants McDonald's, which is based in Oak Brook, IL, in suburban Chicago, to pay its suppliers a penny per pound more for tomatoes and to pass that penny along to the farmworkers.
The pickers now earn 40 to 45 cents per 32-pound bucket, a rate essentially unchanged for nearly 30 years. Farmworkers say they must pick two tons of tomatoes to earn $50.
The CIW McDonald's to establish an enforceable code of conduct to ensure fair and safe working conditions, and to include farmworkes in the creation and monitoring of that code.
During the tour, about 30 farmworkers are expected to travel by van to Chicago from Immokalee, FL. On the way, they will bring their stories of abuse and exploitation to cities including Atlanta, Nashville, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Louisville, Cincinnati, Madison, WI, and Ann Arbor, MI.
They will be joined at each stop, organizers say, by supporters including Presbyterians and other people of faith, student activists, farmers, labor groups and community leaders.
"In past tours, Presbyterians have marched arm-in-arm with the CIW as we've taken this struggle for corporate responsibility and human rights to the streets," said the Rev. Noelle Damico, who represents the PC(USA)'s Office of the General Assembly in issues regarding fair food. "Churches have fed and housed workers, sponsored educational events, and invited CIW to share in worship leadership as the tours came to their hometowns."
This will be the fifth Truth Tour. The first four were part of a successful CIW-led national boycott of Taco Bell. Past tours have featured educational events, community forums, worship services, marches, protests near Taco Bell restaurants and demonstrations outside the Louisville headquarters of Taco Bell's parent company, Yum! Brands Inc.
Although the details are still being worked out, the upcoming tour is expected to be much like the others.
"We want to raise consciousness ... (that) McDonald's is not following Taco Bell's lead," Benitez said. "We want McDonald's to work with us to establish real labor rights for the workers who pick tomatoes for their suppliers."
The Coalition, which represents more than 3,000 mostly Mexican, Guatemalan and Haitian farmworkers throughout Florida, eventually hopes to persuade all major fast-food companies to pay more for tomatoes.
The CIW is targeting McDonald's now because the company has demonstrated a commitment to improving labor conditions, in the form of a new program to sell fair-trade coffee in some stores. Farmers who grow fair-trade coffee are paid a higher-than-average price for their beans.
The CIW started pressuring McDonald's shortly after the coalition reached a groundbreaking agreement with Taco Bell and Yum! That pact, announced on March 8, 2005, requires the company to pay one cent per pound more for tomatoes - and pass the increase to the workers.
The Taco Bell agreement, which came after the CIW's nearly four-year-long boycott of the Mexican-style restaurant chain, also included approval of a code of conduct for tomato suppliers, developed in partnership by Yum! and the CIW, that calls for the company to cut ties with any supplier that violates workers' rights.
As a result of the agreement, the CIW says Taco Bell's supply chain for Florida tomatoes is now fully transparent, allowing workers to track the company's purchases and making enforcement possible.
However, the CIW is not now calling for a boycott of McDonald's.
"We don't want to get to that point," said CIW spokesperson Julia Perkins. "We want to engage the company."
The 214th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in 2002 voted to support the Taco Bell boycott and called for discussions involving the chain, its suppliers and CIW representatives.
During the boycott, the PC(USA) helped arrange meetings between Yum! executives and members of the coalition. In February 2004, an eight-mile protest march to Yum! headquarters started at the Presbyterian Center in Louisville.
Presbyterians have also been active during CIW's engagement of McDonald's, participating in national letter-writing campaigns urging the company to improve wages and labor conditions for farmworkers.
The CIW said several talks with McDonald's officials have made little headway. Company representatives said it has joined a voluntary program that certifies producers that have "complied with all applicable laws and regulations governing employment" and that foster a work environment "free of hazard, intimidation, violence and harassment."
That initiative, called the SAFE (Socially Accountable Farm Employer) program, is run by board members of two organizations: the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association, a growers' lobby, and the Redlands Christian Migrant Association, a non-profit that cares for the children of migrant workers.
Benitez said the SAFE code does nothing to address the sub-poverty wages paid to workers, and noted that the CIW was not involved in its development and still has no involvement in the program.
The Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the PC(USA)'s General Assembly, was among the leaders of religious and human-rights organizations that have criticized the SAFE program.
For more information about the 2006 McDonald's Truth Tour, visit the CIW's Web site, http://www.ciw-online.org, or the PC(USA)'s Fair Food site, www.pcusa.org/fairfood.
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