Mark your calendar! This coming Monday, November 16th, CIW and allies will march through the heart of New York City from a Wendy’s franchise to the office of its Chairman, Nelson Peltz.
Here below is the official press release:
Gerardo Reyes Chavez
Coalition of Immokalee Workers
workers@ciw-online.org, (239) 675-9234MEDIA ADVISORY:
New York City Residents, Farmworkers to March on Park Avenue Offices of Wendy’s Chairman Nelson Peltz, Call on Fast Food Company to Join Award-Winning Human Rights Program
New York, NY – On Monday, November 16, farmworkers and New York City residents – including clergy, community leaders, students, and concerned consumers — will march from the Wendy’s restaurant located at 3rd Ave and E 45th St to the Park Ave. offices of Wendy’s Chairman Nelson Peltz to call on the fast food company to join the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ (CIW) Fair Food Program (FFP). Mr. Peltz’s investment firm, Trian Partners, is the hamburger giant’s largest shareholder. The Fair Food Program is a groundbreaking social responsibility program that has won recognition from the White House to the United Nations for its unique success in addressing decades-old farm labor abuses at the heart of the nation’s food industry. The FFP has been called “the best workplace-monitoring program” in the US in New York Times and “one of the great human rights success stories of our day” in the Washington Post.
The march comes as a response to Mr. Peltz’s repeated rejection of invitations to meet with farmworkers, consumers and rabbis with T’ruah, a national rabbinic human rights organization, to discuss Wendy’s refusal to do its part to protect farmworkers’ human rights in its tomato suppliers’ operations. McDonald’s, Burger King, Yum Brands, Subway, and Chipotle are all participating retailers in the Fair Food Program. Monday’s march will also bring attention to the burgeoning student boycott of Wendy’s and a growing national consumer campaign, including, most recently, a wave of nearly 200 faxes and emails sent directly to Peltz’s office by rabbis from across the country.
“Tens of thousands of Florida farmworkers are experiencing never-before-seen rights as a result of the Fair Food Program,” says Gerardo Reyes Chavez of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. “We seek now to continue to expand those basic human rights protections to the hundreds of thousands of workers beyond the tomato fields and beyond Florida — but Wendy’s participation in the Program is essential to that expansion. Nelson Peltz is uniquely placed to use his position of leadership within Wendy’s to bring the fast food holdout to an agreement with the Coalition.”
What: March to the office of Wendy’s Chairman Nelson Peltz to call on the fast food giant to join the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ award-winning Fair Food Program
Where: March begins at Wendy’s (3rd Ave and E 45th St) and ends at Trian Partners (280 Park Ave) in Midtown Manhattan
When: Monday, Nov. 16 at 5:30pm
The Fair Food Program is a groundbreaking partnership among farmworkers, Florida tomato growers, and fourteen major food retailers, including McDonald’s, Burger King, and Walmart, heralded as “the best workplace monitoring program” on the front page of the New York Times. By committing to the FFP, participating retailers agree to purchase exclusively from Florida tomato suppliers who meet a series of more humane labor standards, among them a zero-tolerance policy for slavery and sexual harassment. Participating corporations also pay a “penny-per-pound” premium, which is passed down through the supply chain and paid out directly to workers by their employers. Since the Program’s inception in 2011, buyers have paid nearly $20 million into the FFP. This summer, the Program expanded for the first time beyond Florida to tomato fields in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and New Jersey, with further expansion on the horizon.
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Stay tuned for more on the big action on Monday!