FARMWORKERS TO McD’S: “SWEATSHOP TOMATOES ARE BENEATH THE GOLDEN ARCHES!”

Posted on by CIW

MEDIA ADVISORY
FOR RELEASE: October 11, 2006

CONTACT:
Melody Gonzalez, Chicago, 239-986-0847
Julia Perkins, on tour, 239-986-0891

FARMWORKERS TO McD’S: “SWEATSHOP TOMATOES ARE BENEATH THE GOLDEN ARCHES!”

Backed by expanding alliance, Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Campaign for Fair Food returns to Chicago, building regional and local support through “2006 McDonald’s Midwest Tour”

What: Farmworkers from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) and their allies will travel from Immokalee, FL — home of one of the largest farmworker communities in the country — to Chicago, IL, home of the world’s largest restaurant chain, McDonald’s. Farmworkers and members of the Alliance for Fair Food will be meeting with student, religious, labor, and community organizations, as well are picketing at local McDonald´s restaurants. The action is part of the CIW’s “Campaign for Fair Food.” The Campaign has gained impressive new support in recent months, including the US Catholic Conference of Bishops, actor Martin Sheen, and Nobel Prize laureate Jody Williams.

Where: The tour will make stops in Louisville, KY on October 15th; Carbondale, IL on the 16th; and Urbana-Champaign, IL on the 17th before arriving in Chicago and its outlying suburbs from the 18th to the 22nd. The tour will wrap-up with a stop in South Bend, IN on the 23rd before returning to Immokalee. The group and local allies will be holding a picket at McDonald´s headquarters in Oak Brook, IL on Friday, October 20th from 4:00pm to 6:00pm; localized pickets throughout Chicago on October 21st.

When: October 15-October 23

Why: The Coalition and allies will be calling on fast-food giant McDonald’s to work with the CIW and help establish real human and labor rights for the workers who pick tomatoes for McDonald’s suppliers. Specifically, workers and their allies will be calling for:

  • The right to a fair wage, after more than 25 years of sub-poverty wages and stagnant piece rates;
  • The right for farmworkers to participate in the decisions that affect their lives, after decades of sweatshop conditions and egregious abuses in the fields;
  • The right to a real code of conduct based on modern labor standards, after McDonald’s and its suppliers unilaterally imposed a hollow code of conduct comprised of minimal labor standards and suspect monitoring.

Highlights of the tour will include:

October 20th: Picket at McDonald’s Headquarters, Oak Brook, IL 4-6pm. CIW members and their allies will gather to once again call on McDonald’s to work with the CIW to raise wages and improve working conditions in their supply chain.

October 21st: A moving picket, hitting various local McDonald´s restaurants throughout Chicago. Farmworkers will be joined by human rights, religious, student, labor, and community at McDonald´s restaurants in different neighborhoods to educate consumers about the reality faced by McDonald´s tomato pickers and McDonald´s actions to undercut the gains won by the farmworkers through the Taco Bell agreement.

Background: On March 8th, 2005, after a 4-year national boycott, the CIW entered into an historic agreement with Taco Bell and its parent company Yum! Brands, establishing important new precedents for corporate social responsibility in the fast-food industry. But since that time, McDonald’s has taken a path that threatens to undercut the wage gains won by farmworkers in the Taco Bell Boycott and to push workers back away from the table where decisions are made that affect their lives.

For more background on workers’ wages & conditions, the Campaign for Fair Food, and the CIW-Yum! Brands agreement, visit www.ciw-online.org or www.allianceforfairfood.org.

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