With these hands I demand the future that poverty wages have stolen from me. Farmworkers returning from picking tomatoes bought by companies, such as McDonald's, show hands stained with pesticides and heavy with hard work.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers is declaring that they are tired, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, of “relying on the goodwill and understanding of those who profit from exploiting us,” and are escalating their campaign to convince McDonald’s to end human rights violations in its supply chain. As their first major action in this new phase of the campaign, they are organizing two days of action in McDonald’s corporate backyard, Chicago. The CIW will hold a march and protest outside McDonald’s corporate headquarters in Oak Brook, IL, on the 13th to be followed by a day of colorful street protests in downtown Chicago in the Latin American tradition of “Carnaval” on the 14th. Read more>> | Coalition of Immokalee Workers | Student Farmworker Alliance | Watch the Video

On April 1st – the fifth anniversary of the launch of the successful Taco Bell Boycott – the caravan will be joined by supporters from throughout the region for a major rally in Chicago, where they will call on the fast-food giant McDonald’s to work with the CIW and help establish real 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 humiliating labor relations;

* 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.

Taco Bell Truth Tour 2005

The Comercio Justo Rally and Protest at the Mission St. Taco Bell in Santa Cruz has been transformed into a celebration. Taco Bell has agreed to some of the Coalition Of Immokalee Workers demands and the CIW has called off the boycott. Taco Bell has agreed to a raise of one cent per pound of tomatoes which will mean roughly $20 more per day for farmworkers. Taco Bell has also agreed to work towards improvements industrywide in fast food. Taco Bell is owned by Yum Brand Foods, which is the largest corporation in fast food, bigger than McDonalds.

The Santa Cruz Rally will still meet at 3:30 pm at the Mission St. Taco Bell, but will then cross the street and gather at the small park by the Community Garden. The scheduled speakers, including the mayor, will still speak and there will be a discussion and celebration.

Coverage from Austin Indymedia: Farmworkers Take Down Taco Bell | Trabajadores Agricolas Derrotan a Taco Bell

Audio: Santa Cruz Rally on March 11th Transformed Into Celebration | Peace Talks: Support the CIW | Interview about Boycott on FRSC

CIW Press Release: Coalition of Immokalee Workers and Taco Bell Reach Groundbreaking Agreement

[ Coalition of Immokalee Workers | Student/Farmworker Alliance | 2005 Truth Tour | US Indymedia Topic Page ]

Today, after four years of struggle, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) has ended their boycott of Taco Bell after winning major concessions from the company. Taco Bell, amidst an ongoing grassroots campaign organized by the CIW, has agreed to work with the Florida-based farmworker organization to improve wages and working conditions for farm workers in the tomato industry.

"The consumer boycott is the only open door in the dark corridor of nothingness down which farmworkers have had to walk for many years. It is a gate of hope through which they expect to find the sunlight of a better life for themselves and their families" (Cesar Chavez)

On March 8, after nearly four years of struggle and amidst the momentum of the 2005 Taco Bell Truth Tour, farmworkers from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW scored a decisive victory in their national boycott of Taco Bell. Caving under the weight of an intense grassroots campaign, the fast-food giant has agreed to work with the Florida-based farmworker organization to improve the wages and working conditions of farmworkers in the Florida tomato industry by paying a penny-per-pound surcharge demanded by the workers. The farmworkers' sub-poverty wages have been stagnant and declining in real terms since 1978.

"This is an important victory for farmworkers, one that establishes a new standard of social responsibility for the fast-food industry and makes an immediate material change in the lives of workers. This sends a clear challenge to other industry leaders," said Lucas Benitez, a member of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. The CIW's precedent-setting victory is also an important step forward for student/youth, global justice, and poor peoples' movements throughout the U.S. who have worked in solidarity with the farmworkers, forcing the world's largest restaurant corporation (Yum! Brands, Taco Bell's parent company) to accept responsibility for conditions in its supply chain.

As planned, farmworkers and their allies will gather in Louisville, KY on March 11th and 12th to celebrate the victory and chart the next steps in the movement to end sweatshops in the fields. The battle is won; the war continues.

For links to multi-media documentation of the 2005 Taco Bell Truth Tour please visit Austin Indymedia
| Segment on Democracy Now!

The 2005 Taco Bell Truth Tour kicked off from Immokalee, Florida on February 28 and headed two different directions en route to Louisville, Kentucky--home of Yum! Brands corporate headquarters. Yum! is the parent company to Taco Bell which is itself one of the most profitable fast food chains in the world. Tomato pickers in Florida, organizing for better working conditions and wages for over a decade, have called a boycott against Taco Bell.

Most tomato pickers in Florida are migrant workers and are vulnerable to exploitation. Aside from fighting for an increase in wages which have stagnated for over 25 years, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers have helped to uncover multiple cases of modern day slavery.

Read More on Indybay's Labor Page

"Boycott Taco Bell" was the message the Coalition of Immokalee Workers brought to the Taco Bell Franchise in Nashville Tennessee Tuesday. Workers are urging a boycott of Taco Bell because Taco Bell buys tomatoes from Yum Foods, a company which the workers say exploits their labor.

For the past three years, farmworkers from Immokalee, FL and their allies have crossed the country, carrying the truth about the sweatshop conditions behind the tomatoes in Taco Bell's products to communities from Tallahassee to San Francisco. Each year, the CIW's Truth Tours have culminated in major actions -- including a 10-day hunger strike in 2003 and a three-day march in 2004 -- outside of Taco Bell's global headquarters in Irvine, California. The 2005 Taco Bell Truth Tour is now on the road, bringing the truth about farmworker poverty to the home of fast-food profits, Yum Brands Inc., the parent company of Taco Bell.

Two Austin IMCistas are on the road with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers' Taco Bell Truth Tour and are filing daily video journals to this website. watch these great videos: day one | day two

Taco Bell Boycott FAQ | daily reports from the tour | student famworker alliance

One week away and once again Tallahassee is gearing up to welcome the Coalition of Immokalee Workers as they make their way once again to Yum Brands (parent company of Taco Bell) Headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky. The first-ever farm worker boycott of a major fast-food company -- the national boycott of Taco Bell -- initiated in April 2001 has called on the fast-food giant to take responsibility for human rights abuses in the fields where its produce is grown and picked.
Taco Bell Truth Tour Topic Page on US IMC

For the past three years, farmworkers from Immokalee, FL and their allies have crossed the country, carrying the truth about the sweatshop conditions behind the tomatoes in Taco Bell's products to communities from Tallahassee to San Francisco. Each year, the CIW's Truth Tours have culminated in major actions -- including a 10-day hunger strike in 2003 and a three-day march in 2004 -- outside of Taco Bell's global headquarters in Irvine, California.

But this year, the 2005 Taco Bell Truth Tour is bringing the truth about farmworker poverty to the home of fast-food profits, Yum Brands Inc., the parent company of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Long John Silvers, and A&W Restaurants, with revenues of over $24 billion in 2003. Yum Brands is the largest restaurant company in the world, larger than McDonald's, and as such wields tremendous influence in the corporate food industry.

As major buyers of Florida tomatoes, Taco Bell and Yum Brands have the opportunity, and the responsibility, to influence the way workers are treated in their suppliers' operations. Yet after more than three years of a strong and growing national boycott, Yum Brands still refuses to take concrete, measurable steps to address the brutal labor conditions in its tomato supply chain -- conditions that include sub-poverty annual wages, no right to overtime, no right to organize, a per bucket piece rate that hasn't changed significantly since 1978, no sick leave, no health insurance, and no benefits whatsoever.

Support for the boycott is expanding at a rapid pace across the country, particularly on college campuses, where the Student/Farmworker Alliance's "Boot the Bell" campaign has become one of the fastest growing movements for social justice today. Most recently, UCLA and the University of Notre Dame have moved to end their relationships with Taco Bell in response to student support for the boycott. They join 18 other schools in an unprecedented wave of student-led activism, demanding that Taco Bell clean up human rights abuses in its supply chain if it is to do business on their campuses.

The 2005 Taco Bell Truth Tour is coming to Chicago on March 4th and 5th and needs your support and participation. To find out more read this.

For more information on the CIW and their struggles check out these links:

• Coalition of Immokalee Workers
  
• Student/Farmworker Alliance
  
• 2005 taco bell truth tour
  
• CIMC feature on the 2002 Taco Bell Truth Tour

The 2005 Taco Bell Truth Tour will be in Atlanta on Monday February 28th and Tuesday, March 1st.

This Friday January 28, at 3:00pm at the [Student] Union Board meeting a resolution regarding Taco Bell will be introduced. This resolution calls for the support of the Union Board in the removal of Taco Bell from UT campus. Students are asking for support at the meeting to demonsrate a strong opposition to Taco Bell's presence on campus. The meeting will be held at the Board of Directors Room in the Texas Union (4.118For background on Taco Bell's record of exploiting immigrant labor see: FAQ’s on the Taco Bell Boycott

Recent history of Boot the Bell organizing at UT
After two years of intermittent actions, picketing and educational efforts, there was a concerted effort in 2003 to remove Taco Bell for the University of Texas’ Texas Union. Students on campus, organizing under the moniker Student Labor Action Project(SLAP), have renewed that effort this year capitalizing on the expiration of the contract between the Texas Union and Aramark, Inc, who manages and operates food facilities, including Taco Bell, in the Student Union. Not only is the contract’s expiration opportune, but also SLAP’s recent organizing efforts have indeed secured the Union Board of Directors and Aramark management’s request for ‘student support’ for removing Taco Bell.

Thousands of signatures calling for Taco Bell’s removal have been collected, hundreds of community members and students have demonstrated against Taco Bell’s existence on UT’s campus.

Hundreds of students from around the country will be in Austin to encourage the Texas Union Board to recommend Taco Bell’s removal. This will coincide with United Students Against Sweatshops national conference Feb 11th-13th.

Many area student also plan to attend the Taco Bell Truth Tour in Louisville, Kentucky February 28 through March 10 in order to highlight Taco Bell’s unfair labor practices.

Related IMC Stories: The Everyday Face of Globalization | SLAP News in the boot the bell campaign 4Nov2004 | CIW Bring Their Fight for Justice in the Fields to Austin 5OCT 2003
[Student/Farmworker Alliance | Coalition of Immokalee Workers]