Anti-Slavery International Award winners the Coalition of Immokalee
Workers (CIW) launched its campaign against fast-food giant
Burger King, with a march on its headquarters to protest the
tolerance of labour exploitation by its suppliers.
On 30 November, more than 1,500 farm workers and allies of
the CIW, including labour activists, religious leaders and students,
accompanied by music and puppetry, took to the streets of Miami
on a nine-mile march to the Burger King headquarters in Miami,
Florida. Once outside, the protestors rallied, displaying hundreds
of worn work-shoes from Immokalee's tomato fields. A CIW delegation
presented three pairs to a Burger King representative, urging
the fast food giant to "walk a mile in our shoes before
you deny the reality of farm-worker poverty and exploitation."
The CIW is a worker-led community organisation based in Florida,
which works with farm workers trafficked into forced labour.
Farm workers are some of the poorest paid and most exploited
workers within the US economy. They suffer "sweatshop conditions",
said the CIW on accepting the 2007 Anti-Slavery Award in London,
"sub-poverty wages, no health insurance, no sick leave,
no pensions, no right to overtime pay, no right to organize.
Paid by piece rate- 45 cents a bucket- a rate which has not
risen in 30 years".
In 2001, the CIW launched the Campaign for Fair Food targeting
the major fast-food corporations responsible for buying vast
amounts of produce, and who therefore have tremendous buying
power to demand low prices. This puts pressure on suppliers
to reduce costs, lowering wages and encouraging poor working
conditions.
Their four-year campaign against Taco Bell led to a US-wide
boycott and resulted in an historic agreement with Taco Bell's
parent company Yum! Brands for a zero-tolerance policy on slavery,
a voice for workers in the development and enforcement of a
strict new supplier code of conduct, and a penny more per pound
of tomatoes to be passed directly on to the workers. Their campaign
against McDonalds expanded upon that success.
The CIW is now calling for action from Burger King to take
responsibility for labour exploitation in its supply chains
and help end sweatshop conditions in US fields. Burger King,
however, has so far refused to work with the CIW to improve
the wages and working conditions of those who pick its tomatoes.
Instead, Burger King has allied with elements of the Florida
tomato industry in a campaign to undermine the CIW's agreements
with Yum! Brands and McDonald's.
For
more information about the CIW and the Campaign for Fair Food
For the CIW's
report and photos of the march on Burger King Headquarters:
