By Mitch
After winning two major victories against Taco Bell and McDonalds, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) has continued their struggle for farmworker justice by now taking on Burger King.
The CIW is a membership-run farm worker coalition based in Immokalee, Florida. The W.S.A. has been an ally of CIW for a number of years now.
According to the CIW: "Fast-food giants like Burger King play an active role in creating the unconscionable conditions in Florida's tomato fields. These massive chains are able to pool the buying power of tens of thousands of restaurants and leverage that enormous power to demand ever-lower prices from their tomato suppliers. This in turn puts a strong downward pressure on farmworker wages, as tomato suppliers squeeze their diminishing profits from their workers through ever-lower wages in order to meet the volume discounts demanded by their fast-food clients. As such, farmworker poverty feeds fast-food profits."
One of the CIW's slogan is "Consciousness + Commitment = Change". The CIW is asking our readers, your friends and families to help create consciousness in your community about the conditions in the fields and the important changes being made through the CIW's Campaign for Fair Food.
CIW has a number of informative materials for screening and educational materials for distribution. You can screen a DVD about the CIW at http://www.ciw-online.org/about.html.
We urge all of our readers to become active in helping the Immolalee farmworkers fight for justice and become involved in their grassroots campaigns.
Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW)
P. O. Box 603
Immokalee, FL, 34143
Phone: (239) 657-8311
Fax: (239) 657-5055
E-mail workers@ciw-online.org