Coalition of Immokalee Workers Update!

July 20, 2004
The information in this update comes from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers

In this alert:

1. Mother Jones Features CIW
2. Fifty-one UCLA Students End Fast!
3. Taco Bell Attempts Payoff!

Mother Jones Features CIW --

Coalition of Immokalee Workers leader Lucas Benitez is featured as this month's "Hellraiser" in Mother Jones magazine in an article entitled "Power to the Pickers." Buy your own issue on newsstands or read the article online.

Here's an excerpt:

"'Picking is dignified, honest work that deserves to be treated as such. This community of workers is...clearing the path for those who will come behind us. It's not something that can wait for others. It has to come from us, who've worked in the fields.'"

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Fifty-one UCLA Students End Fast! --

On Wednesday, June 16, UCLA students ended their 8 day hunger strike in support of the Taco Bell Boycott. Over 51 students fasted even during final exams to send a strong message to ASUCLA , the body of students and advisors that runs UCLA's restaurants, that it is not okay to allow Taco Bell to remain on campus until Taco Bell takes responsibility to change wages and working conditions in its supply chain!

The day before the fast ended, ASUCLA's office was flooded with emails and phone calls from all over the country, urging them to stop giving Taco Bell extensions until Yum Brands and Taco Bell make real changes for farmworkers!

UCLA was the 6th university to be hit by a hunger strike for farmworker justice this semester!

Reac the latest UCLA Daily Bruin article on the UCLA Boot the Bell hunger strike.

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Taco Bell Attempts Payoff! --

In its latest effort to counter the growing support for the boycott, Taco Bell sent an unsolicited check to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, which the Coalition promptly returned. Taco Bell claims that the check, in the amount of $110,000, represents one penny per pound of tomatoes that Taco Bell buys from Florida .

Clearly, Taco Bell is feeling the pressure of the nationwide boycott. But instead of working to eliminate human rights abuses in its supply chain and demanding modern-day labor practices from its suppliers, Taco Bell has decided to fund a public relations effort designed to mislead the press and the public.

Taco Bell first suggested "giving" this check many weeks ago, at a meeting that both sides agreed to keep confidential. Both the Coalition and the Presbyterian Church (USA) explained at the meeting that Taco Bell's suppliers must compensate the workers through changing the wages paid to the workers, not by an arbitrary gift of funds. But this fact isn't important to Taco Bell. It picked an amount out of thin air and sent a check in that amount to the Coalition, knowing that the money does not compensate the workers justly nor does it represent a promise to do so.

Socially responsible business practices demand that multi-billion dollar companies like Taco Bell's parent company Yum establish direct and transparent relationships with their suppliers so that labor conditions in their supply chain can be monitored and held to modern-day standards demanded by their consumers.

Read an editorial in the June 23, 2004 edition of the Palm Beach Post entitled "Send Reform, Not Payoff!"

Visit the web page of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers at www.ciw-online.org/

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