wfn.org | Migrant Workers That Helped Sparked NCC Boycott Receive Award

["Leslie Tune" <ltune@ncccusa.org>]

Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award Presented
To Florida-Based Migrant Workers' Organization

Plight of Tomato Pickers Resulted in National Council of Churches
Boycott Against Taco Bell

Washington, D.C., Nov.19- The Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human
Rights will honor a Florida-based migrant labor organization whose cause has
recently been championed by the National Council of Churches USA. The
prestigious 2003 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award will be presented to
Julia Gabriel, Lucas Benitez, and Romeo Ramirez, three leaders of the
Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) in Immokalee, Fla.

The award ceremony will be held on November 20th to commemorate the birthday
of RFK; this will be the 20th anniversary of the Human Rights Award.

An independent panel of judges - advised by luminaries such as Archbishop
Desmond Tutu - has selected individuals from Liberia to Colombia as
outstanding human rights defenders, who have fueled critical political and
social movements and represent the central struggles of the past year and
the start of a new groundswell. This year, for the first time, a U.S.-based
organization has been chosen to receive the award.

"For too long human rights violations have been thought of as something
happening in other countries and the civil rights movement as something one
studies in history classes - but the choices we make daily, like the food we
buy, can either contribute to ugly human rights violations happening right
here in the U.S. or contribute to ending such violations.  It is our
choice," said Todd Howland, Director of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial
Center for Human Rights.

The National Council of Churches-made up of 36 Protestant, African American
and Orthodox denominations with 50 million members-earlier this month took
the unusual step of calling a boycott on Taco Bell restaurants after
negotiations on behalf of the Immokalee workers failed to achieve the needed
changes in labor conditions for the migrant workers.

The Taco Bell tacos and Pizza Hut pizzas Americans buy for lunch are all
products made of basic ingredients picked by workers such as those in the
CIW.  To keep costs low, YUM! Brands, Inc. (the world's largest fast food
company, made up of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC, A&W, and Long John Silver's)
buys ingredients from companies that illegally keep migrant workers in the
Southeastern United States in isolated forced labor camps, breaking both
domestic and international human rights and labor standards.

Through their work, Ms. Gabriel, Mr. Benitez, and Mr. Ramirez have helped
liberate over a thousand laborers held against their will by employers using
debt bondage, violence - beatings, pistol-whippings, and shootings. After
setting the workers free, the CIW has helped give voice to those afraid to
come forward as witnesses, and after years of investigations, won
prosecutions against three multi-state slavery operations.  One of the
convicted employers was Ms. Gabriel's own, as she is a former captive worker
who escaped from a 400-worker slavery ring that operated in the fields of
South Carolina and Florida.

The award ceremony will take place in Room 325 of the Russell Senate Office
Building at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 20 and will be followed by a press
conference in Room 385. U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy will host the ceremony,
and Mrs. Ethel Kennedy, widow of RFK, will present the award. There will be
opportunities to interview the Award Laureates, Kennedy family members, RFK
Center for Human Rights Director Todd Howland, and RFK Memorial Executive
Director Lynn Delaney.

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Rev. Leslie C. Tune
Washington Communication Officer
National Council of Churches USA/Church World Service
(202) 544-2350, ext. 11

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