Twitter claps back at Wendy’s: “Reprehensible,” “vile,” “disgusting,” “shameful” and “outrageous”…

Posted on by CIW
From left to right, CIW leaders Silvia Perez, Julia Perkins, and Lupe Gonzalo conduct a worker-to-worker education session on the right of farmworker women to work free of sexual violence on a Fair Food Program farm in July, 2017.

Wendy’s spokesperson Heidi Schauer claims “CIW trying to exploit the positive momentum that has been generated by and for women in the #MeToo and Time’s Up movement to advance their interests” in Huffington Post article…

Time’s Up leaders react!  Alyssa Milano: “Hey,@! If you really want to get on the wrong side of the  movement, keep using our name to attack and belittle farmworker women who are fighting to keep themselves and their sisters safe from rape in the fields.”

Silvia Perez protests the silencing of farmworker women through fear and intimidation in the Mexican produce industry where Wendy’s buys its tomatoes during last week’s Freedom Fast.

First, a bit of context…

The CIW’s Silvia Perez (pictured on the right during last week’s Freedom Fast), has spent the past six years waking up as early as 4 am to drive through the dawn to tomato, strawberry, and pepper fields across the state of Florida and up the East Coast as far as New Jersey.  Over those six years, she and her fellow education team members have taught tens of thousands of her fellow farmworkers about their rights — including the right to work free from sexual violence, an abuse so common that fully 80% of farmworker women report being subjected to sexual harassment or assault at work — under the Fair Food Program. 

Indeed, along with several other longtime CIW leaders, women and men, Silvia has spent the past seventeen years, since the launch of the Campaign for Fair Food in 2001, organizing day in and day out to win the power to enforce farmworkers’ human rights in the fields — including the right to work free from sexual violence.  In the process, Silvia and her colleagues have helped countless farmworker women successfully defend their rights and have transformed an entire industry.

And today, the Fair Food Program (FFP) that Silvia and her colleagues built is widely recognized as the only program that has successfully put a stop to sexual assault at work for low wage workers in this country.  The FFP is being studied by experts from the halls of academia, to European capitals, to the inner circles of the Time’s Up movement as a model for protecting the rights of tens of millions of women around the globe.  Their efforts over the past two decades have attracted the attention of human rights observers from the White House to the United Nations.  They have received a Presidential Medal, the Anti-Slavery Hero Award from the State Department, and a MacArthur “Genius” Grant for their groundbreaking achievements.  

Yet this week, Wendy’s spokesperson Heidi Schauer accused Silvia and her colleagues at the CIW of “trying to exploit the positive momentum that has been generated by and for women in the #MeToo and Time’s Up movement to advance their interests,” in an article published Wednesday in the Huffington Post. 

Wendy’s accused farmworker women of exploiting the Time’s Up movement.

Wendy’s should never be allowed to speak about the Time’s Up movement again.

And just a bit more context…

Last week, in the course of the CIW’s five-day Freedom Fast outside Nelson Peltz’s hedge fund offices on Park Avenus in midtown Manhattan, Silvia shared a personal experience with a reporter from Think Progress:

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK When Silvia Perez came to Immokalee, Florida from Guatemala in 1993, there was one profession that made sense: working in the fields.

“Tomato-picking is the biggest industry in Florida, and you find out about it right when you arrive,” she said. “It’s bigger than textiles or the restaurant business.”

Perez got a job on a farm in Immokalee, where she was one of five women on a farm saturated with men; she made friends with two other women at work and they stuck together.  Before long, their male supervisor began following them around while they worked.  One day, he compared the tightness of their clothing and encouraged Perez to wear tighter shirts and more fashionable clothes.

Perez dealt with it. With two kids to feed and minimal fluency in English, she felt that tomato picking was the best option for her in her new home.

Then, in 2008, her supervisor touched her breasts.

“He asked me if they are real or fake,” she recalled. “I was so angry.”

She remembered the incident as she protested on the streets of New York City for the past five days in support of worker protections. (read more)

Yet this week, Wendy’s spokesperson Heidi Schauer accused Silvia and her colleagues at the CIW of “trying to exploit the positive momentum that has been generated by and for women in the #MeToo and Time’s Up movement to advance their interests,” in an article published Wednesday in the Huffington Post. 

That is what Wendy’s said.  We can’t make this up.

Time’s Up, Wendy’s…

The absurdity of Wendy’s latest attack on the farmworkers calling on the fast-food giant to join the fight against sexual violence was not lost on leaders of the entertainment industry:

 

Last week, I stood alongside farmworker women — joined by their families, fellow farmworker men, and scores of supporters from across the country — who fasted for five, long days to demand that @Wendys help to end sexual violence in its supply chain by joining the @immokalee.workers’ Fair Food Program. (http://bit.ly/2pvIGWy) . It was absolutely shocking to me today that Wendy’s said that these members of the CIW are “trying to exploit the positive momentum that has been generated by and for women in the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements to advance their interests (http://bit.ly/2pu4C5c).” What Wendy’s sadly but perhaps intentionally fails to understand is that the Immokalee women workers are the heart and soul of the #Metoo and #TimesUp Movements. We are rising to end sexual harassment and abuse in every sector and we stand with the Immokalee farm workers who are suffering some of the worst abuse and bravely leading the way. How can exploited women workers exploit a movement working to end exploitation of women? Insanity!

A post shared by @ eveensler on

Indeed, the shock and disgust expressed by Alyssa, Eve, Caitriona and Sara was reflected a hundred times over across Twitter and Facebook.  Make sure to add your own voice to the mix, and let @Wendys know what you think about their latest attack against farmworker women.

To wrap up, we cede the last word to Silvia Perez herself: 

Silvia Perez, right, prepares to deliver over 100,000 petition signatures to Wendy’s Nelson Peltz calling on the fast-food giant to join the Fair Food Program with a team of farmworker and faith allies during last week’s Freedom Fast.

“Today, Wendy’s showed just how lost, and just how desperate, they truly are, by inventing this idea that we as farmworker women do not belong in the #MeToo movement.  We are not only fighting for our community, but also supporting other women who are working to change their own industries and to change society — that is exactly what the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements are.  We have fought for decades to protect the dignity of the women and men who harvest our food — and we are winning, through the Fair Food Program.  Wendy’s cannot erase the hard-earned progress we’ve made.  There is a long road ahead, and sooner or later, Wendy’s will join us in moving forward and expanding these protections to tens of thousands of more women.”