wfn.org | Bgnd on Taco Bell, Mt. Olive Pickle Boycotts Issue (NCC Nov. 6)

["Carol Fouke" <cfouke@ncccusa.org>]

Backgrounder: Taco Bell and Mt. Olive Pickle Boycotts Issue at NCC General
Assembly

MEDIA CONTACTS:
NCC Newsroom Nov. 4-6: 601-206-3181 (Crown Room, Jackson Hilton)
Or Mobile Phone: 702-523-4006 or 917-690-6075

November 5, 2003, JACKSON, Miss. - During its annual national meeting here
Nov. 4-6, the National Council of Churches General Assembly will have before
it actions on several social issues, including proposals that the NCC
endorse consumer boycotts of Taco Bell and Mt. Olive Pickle companies to put
pressure for improvement of wages and living conditions of their suppliers
farm workers.

Affirmative votes would be especially significant given the NCCs insistence
that boycotts are a measure of last resort.  It has been more than 15 years
since the NCC endorsed a boycott (May 1988, related to Royal Dutch/Shells
connections at that time to apartheid South Africa.).

The 1960 CBS documentary Harvest of Shame exposed the deplorable and often
inhumane conditions under which agricultural migrant workers labored to
bring food to American tables at low cost and catalyzed improvements.  By
most accounts the gains that resulted have been lost and conditions of
workers have deteriorated.  Proponents of the boycotts of Taco Bell and Mt.
Olive say that in addition to their specific demands, they are seeking
attention for the larger, ongoing disgrace of working conditions for farm
labors.

Estimates of the number of migrant farm workers in the United States range
from 1.5 to more than 2 million.  In the growing season, about 300,000 are
in Florida and between 100,000 to 200,000 are in North Carolina.

TACO BELL BOYCOTT

In March 2001, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, an Immokalee,
Florida-based workers coalition, called for a national consumer boycott of
Taco Bell restaurants and products following Taco Bells refusal to address
exploitation in the fields of its tomato suppliers, particularly those of
Six Ls Packing Company, one of the United States largest tomato growers.

To date, the top governing bodies of four national religious bodies,
including three NCC member denominations - the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
(3.5 million members), the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) (805,000
members) and the United Church of Christ (1.4 million members) - have
endorsed the boycott, as has the American Friends Service Committee.

The National Council of Churches - the nations leading ecumenical
organization whose 36 mainline Protestant, African American, Orthodox and
Episcopal member denominations comprise 50 million U.S. Christians in
140,000 local congregations nationwide - would be the largest and broadest
religious body to endorse the boycott.

According to U.S. Department of Labor data, the average piece rate paid to
tomato harvesters in 1980 was 40 cents per 32-pound bucket.  Today,
harvesters are paid the same average piece rate, earning less than one-half
of what they did 20 years ago in inflation-adjusted dollars.  At the 40 cent
piece rate, workers must pick and haul two tons of tomatoes to make $50.
Fresh-picked tomatoes are a featured component of many of Taco Bells
best-selling products.

Taco Bell is owned by Yum! Brands, Inc., the largest fast-food chain in the
world. Given the sheer volume of tomatoes Taco Bell buys from Florida-based
growers, proponents of the boycott contend, it has the power to bring Six
L's and other tomato suppliers to the negotiating table for three-way
dialogue with the CIW and help bring about more modern, more equitable labor
relations in Floridas tomato fields.  Furthermore, Taco Bell could
immediately double the earnings of tomato harvesters by agreeing to pay just
one penny more per pound of tomatoes, which would be an important step in
redressing workers loss of real wages.  If this per pound increase were
passed on to consumers, a Chalupa would cost about 1/4 of a cent more.

The issues underlying the Taco Bell Boycott have been under study in the NCC
since November 2002.  Requests from NCC General Secretary Bob Edgar for a
meeting with Taco Bells President Emil Brolick have gone unanswered to
date.

The NCCs Executive Board in September voted to recommend that the General
Assembly endorse the Taco Bell Boycott.  The vote was unanimous with six
abstentions; the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and Richard L. Hamm,
General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of
Christ), who asked that their abstentions be registered because at that time
their denominations had not yet spoken on this issue.  (Subsequently, in
October 2003, the General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of
Christ) voted to endorse the boycott.)

The boycott would remain in effect until such time as Taco Bell:

7	convenes serious three-way talks between the Coalition of Immokalee
Workers, representatives of Taco Bell, and their tomato supplies to address
exploitation and slavery in the fields, and
7	contributes to an immediate increase in farm worker wages through an
increase in the per pound rate it pays for tomatoes, and
7	works with the CIW, tomato industry representatives and tomato
suppliers
to establish a code of conduct that would ensure workers fundamental labor
rights by defining strict wage and working condition standards required of
all Taco Bell suppliers.

In recent weeks, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has been recognized by:

'	The Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, which has
selected
Julia Gabriel, Lucas Benitez and Romeo Ramirez, three leaders of the
Coalition of Immokalee Workers, to receive the prestigious 2003 RFK Human
Rights Award for their work against slavery in the fields and for the Taco
Bell Boycott.  Through their work, they have helped liberate more than 1,000
workers held against their will by employers using violence - beatings,
pistol-whippings, shootings - and the threat of violence, according to the
center.  Ms. Gabriel herself is a former captive worker who escaped from a
400-worker slavery ring that operated in the fields of South Carolina and
Florida.  With the assistance of the CIW, Ms. Gabriel successfully helped
prosecute and put her employer behind bars.

'	The September 2003 issue of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE, which, in a
story on modern-day slavery, put the total number of slaves in the United
States at between 100,000 to 150,000 (including farm workers, prostitutes
and sweatshop workers) and featured the plight of pickers and the work of
the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, describing conditions of abuse and
enslavement.  Reported the magazine, the CIW has exposed five cases of
agricultural slavery in Florida in the past five years.  The latest involved
700 slaves.

'	On September 25, 2003, PBS-TV aired DYING TO LEAVE, a documentary
on
trafficking and slavery that featured the Coalition of Immokalee Workers
work and slavery in the tomato fields of Florida in the global context of
slavery worldwide.

For more information about the issues underlying the Taco Bell Boycott, see
www.pcusa.org/boycott and www.ciw-online.org.

MT. OLIVE PICKLE BOYCOTT

In March 1999, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), a union
representing farm workers, announced a consumer boycott of the products of
Mt. Olive Pickle Company, based in Mt. Olive, N.C., the nations largest
independent pickle producer and the nations second largest processor of
pickles and pickle products.

According to FLOC, the consumer boycott was called following unsuccessful
attempts to bring the management of Mt. Olive to the table to negotiate
improved wages and working conditions for farm workers who produce the
cucumbers processed by Mt. Olive. FLOC is seeking to negotiate a contract
with the Mt. Olive Pickle Company on behalf of the workers.

The boycott has received the endorsement of more than 300 organizations,
including two NCC member communions - the United Church of Christ and the
Alliance of Baptists - along with the American Friends Service Committee and
two organizations related to the NCC: Agricultural Missions, Inc., and the
National Farm Worker Ministry.

The NCC General Assembly first took up the issues at its November 2000
annual meeting.  At that time, the Assembly voted its support of the Farm
Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC)s efforts to improve conditions authorized
the Executive Board to monitor progress and to endorse the boycott if
necessary.

A September 2000 report by Agricultural Missions, Inc., described conditions
under which migrant farm laborers work as very difficult, unhealthy and
dangerous.  Already low wages have declined over the past two decades, and
health and safety standards are not being enforced resulting to illness and
injury.  Grower provided housing is for the most part substandard and
sanitary conditions are often below legal requirements, both in the fields
and in living quarters.  Child labor laws are frequently ignored on many
farms.

Several meetings with Mt. Olive CEO William Bryan have failed to win
agreement from the Mt. Olive Pickle Company to enter negotiations with FLOC.
Boycott proponents contend that contracts providing workers with a voice in
the industry and a process to address grievances without fear of firing have
proven to be farm workers best hope for improving conditions.

FLOC compiled information from North Carolina in the summer of 2003 that
indicates how bad conditions remain for North Carolinas farm workers,
including those who are employed by growers selling to Mt. Olive.

The NCC Executive Board in late September recommended that the General
Assembly endorse the Mt. Olive boycott, the effective date to be as soon
after January 1, 2004, as determined by the NCC Executive Board - in the
spirit of a final effort to win a contract for the farm workers.  The vote
was unanimous with three abstentions; the ELCA asked that its abstention be
registered.

Agricultural Missions September 2000 report said, The conditions in North
Carolina are not unique and exist in almost every state that host migrant
farm workers.  As a group, farm workers are specifically excluded from legal
protections afforded other workers in relation to minimum wage, overtime and
holiday pay, workmens compensation, health insurance and child labor.	The
minimal standards and protections offered by federal and state agencies
often are not enforced.

-end-

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