[Antiracism] Local students, community unite with farmworkers v. McDonald's

[Marc Rodrigues]

For Immediate Release: Monday, March 27, 2006 9:00 AM EST

Contact: Student/Farmworker Alliance (www.sfalliance.org)
Marc Rodrigues (914) 661-9783

-Local students, community members join Florida farmworkers to demand
McDonald's eliminate sweatshop conditions in its tomato supply chain

-"Real Rights Tour" & Student Labor Week of Action highlight urgent
need for change in agricultural industry; actions and events planned
for Five-College area

AMHERST, MA — Students and other allies from across the country will
join farmworkers from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to
travel by caravan 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 [NYSE: MCD].  From March
27 through the first week of April, students and other residents will
deliver letters endorsed by several local organizations to McDonald's
franchises from Springfield to Greenfield.  In addition, they will
hold a series of educational events at Amherst, Hampshire, and Smith
Colleges and the University of Massachusetts from April 3rd to the
7th.

These local actions will surround a major march and rally in Chicago
on April 1st by the CIW and supporters from throughout the region who
will call on the fast-food giant to work with the CIW and help
establish real labor rights for the workers who pick tomatoes for
McDonald's suppliers.

Marc Rodrigues, UMass graduate student and Student/Farmworker Alliance
(SFA) member, said, "As students and union members, and as New
Englanders, we demand that McDonald's do better, and know that it can.
 McDonald's recently announced an agreement to purchase only
fair-trade coffee for over 650 of its Restaurants in the New England
region.  Yet McDonald's refuses to pay even a penny more per pound for
its tomatoes so that Florida farmworkers can earn a better wage.  It's
time for McDonald's to work with the CIW to ensure real rights for
farmworkers."

McDonald's spends over $1.5 billion annually on marketing and recently
named 18- to 24-year-olds as its new brand "sweet spot" (Nation's
Restaurant News, 4/11/05).  Five-College students are joining
activists at dozens of campuses –from San Bernardino, California to
Stony Brook, New York – who are questioning the reality behind
McDonald's marketing and organizing educational events and protests to
support the Real Rights Tour and the national Student Labor Week of
Action.

In 2005, the Taco Bell boycott victory led by the CIW established
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.

Presently, Florida tomato pickers earn 40-45 cents for every 32-lb
bucket of tomatoes they pick.  At this rate, a farmworker must pick
two tons of tomatoes to make just $50 in a day.  Additionally,
farmworkers regularly work 10-12 hour days with no overtime pay, no
health insurance, no right to organize, no sick days and no benefits
whatsoever.  The CIW is a community organization of low-wage mostly
Latino, Haitian, and Mayan Indian migrant workers based in southwest
Florida that has been nationally and internationally recognized for
its leadership in human rights, including uncovering and assisting in
the successful prosecution of five farmworker slavery rings since
1997.

The text of the letter being delivered to local McDonald's as well as
a list of local endorsing organizations and individuals are appended
below.

For more information, visit: http://www.sfalliance.org and
http://www.ciw-online.org.

##END##



Letter to be delivered to McDonald's:


March 2006

Dear McDonald's Manager,

As you may know, McDonald's Corporation has been presented with the
opportunity to foster real social responsibility in their tomato
supply chain by working with an award-winning human rights farmworker
organization, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW).

Today, there is a human rights crisis in the Florida tomato fields --
the same fields that supply McDonald's with tomatoes for their salads
and sandwiches.  Tomato pickers earn about 45 cents per 32-lb bucket
of tomatoes, a rate that has not risen since 1978, and work from dawn
to dusk without the right to overtime pay.  At the current piece rate,
workers have to pick 2 tons of tomatoes to earn $50 in a day.

Even worse, modern-day slavery rings, in which workers are held
against their will and forced to work through violence or threats of
violence, have been found in the fields. The CIW has assisted the
Department of Justice in uncovering, investigating, and successfully
prosecuting 5 such cases since 1997.  In fact, according to a recent
front page story in Florida, one convicted slaver who spent 33 months
in federal prison was recently found working again for Ag-Mart, a
company that supplies McDonald's with grape tomatoes.

McDonald's high-volume, low-cost purchasing practices have made it
possible for McDonald's to extract extremely low tomato prices from
its suppliers, but these cheap tomatoes come at a high cost:
farmworker poverty and exploitation.

Taco Bell has already agreed to do its part to help relieve farmworker
poverty. After a four-year national boycott, Taco Bell joined with the
CIW in a partnership for social responsibility, paying a fairer price
for its tomatoes so that the workers could earn a fairer wage, and
working with the CIW to address the human rights violations in its
supply chain.

As a consumer, I was disappointed to learn that McDonald's has so far
refused to take these simple steps for fairness. Instead, McDonald's
has chosen to deflect responsibility for the crisis in the fields onto
its suppliers, completely ignore the need for economic relief, and
avoid working with the CIW, whose members live these conditions and
have a track record of successfully addressing abuses in the fields.

This is a golden opportunity to show leadership in the industry.
Please contact McDonald's Corporate Headquarters and let them know
that you and your customers want them to:

-Pay a penny more per pound for the tomatoes that McDonald's purchases
and ensure that this increase is passed along to tomato pickers in the
form of increased wages,

-Work with the CIW to implement an enforceable code of conduct to
ensure fair and safe working conditions for farmworkers in McDonald's
tomato supply chain

Thank you.

Sincerely,

American Friends Service Committee/Western Massachusetts
ARISE for Social Justice, Springfield
Black Student Union, Amherst College
Chicano Caucus, Amherst College
Graduate Employee Organization, UMass
Jobs With Justice/Western Massachusetts
La Causa, Amherst College
Latin American Graduate Student Organization, UMass
School of the Americas Watch/Massachusetts Chapter
Take Back UMass
UAW Local 2322 Executive Board: Paul Bailey, Claire Hammonds, John
McGrath, Megan McDonough, Mary Rocco, Jen Turner, Jeremy Wolf

Erika Arthur, Amherst, MA
Saulo Colon, UMass graduate student
Martin Espada, Professor of English, UMass
Ron D. Espiritu, Amherst College student
Thomas Fleenor, UMass student
John Gurvitch, Holyoke, MA
Marisha Leiblum, UMass student
Jessica Levy, member, Western Mass. Jobs With Justice
Amy Loomis, UMass graduate student
Michael Lucey, Easthampton, MA
Kate Maich, UMass graduate student
Meghan McDonough, UMass graduate student
Elena Mitchell, UMass graduate student
Ron Patenaude, President, UAW Local 2322
Marc Rodrigues, Hadley, MA; member, Student/Farmworker Alliance
Adam Trott, Hadley, MA; member, Student/Farmworker Alliance
Michael True, Worcester, MA
Lars Turner, UMass graduate student
Ferd Wulkan, staff, Massachusetts Society of Professors