 The CIW team landed in Amsterdam, which is quickly becoming familiar territory for the Campaign for Fair Food. But while most visitors to the picturesque city take photos of the canals or the iconic flower market, the CIW crew noticed the thousands and thousands of bikes everywhere you go around the city. Amsterdam and Immokalee have one thing in common: both are towns where bicycles are the main form of transportation. Here above is a giant bike parking garage outside Amsterdam’s Central Station. |
 On Monday the CIW crew met up with allies from FNV Bondgenoten (the AFL-CIO of the Netherlands), the UFCW, and the Teamsters at the FNV offices in Utrecht, outside Amsterdam, for some lunch and strategic discussion around the organizations’ joint efforts at Wednesday’s Annual General Meeting. |
 That evening, the Campaign for Fair Food’s top ally in Amsterdam, Marijke Bijl (of Holland’s immigrant worker organization, OKIA) organized a meeting of Dutch Fair Food allies. Lucas Benitez of the CIW gave all the exciting news about the changes underway in Florida as a result of the FTGE agreement and discussed Ahold’s refusal to support these changes. UFCW members joined the meeting and shared their own stories, and the gathering concluded with plans to hold Ahold accountable for the pattern of exploitation throughout its US operations. |
 And then came the big day. On Wednesday, Marijke (middle) joined the CIW/UFCW/Teamsters crew outside the shareholders meeting, stopping here before the action for a quick photo with Lucas Benitez of the CIW and Henk van der Kolk, the Chairman of the FNV. |
 And finally it was time to get down to work. Here, members of the UFCW and the CIW along with representatives from the Teamsters help to assemble the goodie bags to be handed out to arriving shareholders as part of the day’s action coordinated by the FNV and UFCW. |
 And it was quite the production, complete with a red carpet and “royal stewards” (pictured on either side of the carpet in red suits). The stewards and workers’ representatives escorted shareholders up red carpet, giving the CIW/UFCW/Teamsters delegation the opportunity to engage shareholders on the issues. |
 And so went an extremely well-organized shareholder action, with eye-catching communication outside (which definitely drew the attention of the Dutch press, with at least nine different articles on the meeting the next day mentioning the presence and grievances of the US workers’ organizations)… |
Ahold was not prepared for a coordinated presentation by workers throughout its US operations, from the stores, to the distribution centers, to the fields. The argument that exploitation runs deep in Ahold’s overseas chains obviated their canned responses to each individual claim. But Ahold is nothing if not skilled at coming up with facile responses to real issues. No doubt the company will quickly regroup and issue a suitably vacuous response aimed at satisfying press inquiries, not addressing the real problems. But such a strategy isn’t sustainable for the long haul, and the time will come when Ahold’s words can no longer cover up the reality of exploitation and poverty behind Ahold’s brands. This shareholder meeting brought all our campaigns one step closer to that day. |
