Search Results for 'Immokalee'
In the States |
Nov 12 |
Florida Students Rally for Tobacco Workers
Students at the University of Florida (UF) and the University of Central Florida (UCF) spent last Saturday morning raising their voices for justice for tobacco workers. Chanting ”Justice now!” and holding signs that read “Hasta la Victoria” (”Onward to Victory”), dozens of students marched and rallied on UF’s Gainesville campus.
The students joined members of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), the Student/Farmworker Alliance and the National Farm Worker Ministry to demand justice for tobacco farm workers in North Carolina who suffer low wages and poor working conditions at the hands of Big Tobacco.
The rally followed a UF Student Senate resolution calling for a pay increase and better treatment of Immokalee farm workers, who pick the tomatoes used by Aramark, UF’s food provider. “Somebody’s got to fight for social justice,” said UF junior Justin Wooten.
In the States, Organizing & Bargaining |
Nov 6 |
Florida Activist Training Draws 200 Union Members
 |
||||
|
||||
Joshua Anijar, a zone coordinator for the Florida AFL-CIO, sends us this report on a recent activist training session that drew more than 200 union members from Central Florida Labor Council unions in Orlando late last month.
This was the Central Florida AFL-CIO’s first activist training and it will become an annual event to help equip union members with the skills and training that will help in organizing, political and other mobilizations. We had rank-and-file union members from more than two dozen unions and constituency and other labor groups.
Fernando Redon from Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 606 says the daylong session with speakers and workshops
gave my members a chance to get training on topics that can help them be more active in their local meetings or on the job site, while giving them a larger perspective and education of worker struggle, dignity and justice.
Organizing & Bargaining |
Sep 28 |
Tomato Workers Score Huge Victory
 |
||||
|
In a huge win for farm workers, one of the nation’s top food service and management companies reached an agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to improve working conditions and give a raise directly to Florida’s tomato harvesters.
The pact between Compass Group North America and the CIW calls for the company to pay an additional 1.5 cents per pound for all the tomatoes it purchases each year, with 1 cent per pound passed directly from the supplier to the workers. The agreement boosts workers’ wages from 50 cents for a 32-pound bucket to 82 cents per bucket, a 64 percent increase.
This is the first agreement where the money goes directly to the workers. Previous agreements called for the money to go into an escrow account.
Organizing & Bargaining |
Jun 5 |
Two Farms Agree to Better Wages, Conditions for Florida Tomato Workers
 |
|
The campaign of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to bring better wages and improved working conditions to Florida’s tomato fields took a big step forward this week.
Whole Foods Market announced that two of the largest organic growers in Florida—Lady Moon Farms and Alderman Farms—have signed agreements to implement the principles of the “penny-per-pound” program to improve wages for tomato harvesters. That means workers on those farms will get 72 cents to 77 cents for every 32-pound bucket of tomatoes they pick, up from 40 cents to 45 cents.
These agreements effectively break a stalemate that began nearly two growing seasons ago when the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange threatened to levy a $100,000 fine on any member who participated in the CIW agreements. At that time, two Florida growers who had been passing on the penny-per-pound increase under a 2007 agreement with Taco Bell agreement ceased doing so.
Although fast-food companies such as McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway and Yum! all agreed to the CIW principles, no farms in the area dared buck the Growers Exchange until now.
Organizing & Bargaining |
Apr 1 |
McDonald’s to Limit Pesticides After Shareholder Action
In a big win for workers and consumers, McDonald’s Corp., the largest purchaser of potatoes in the United States, has agreed to take steps to reduce pesticides used to produce french fries and other potato products.
The action came in response to a shareholder proposal by three investors, including the AFL-CIO, that would have required McDonald’s to publish a report on options for reducing pesticide use in its supply chain. Under the agreement, the groups—Bard College Endowment, Newground Social Investment and the AFL-CIO Reserve Fund—will withdraw the shareholder resolution they filed jointly.
Organizing & Bargaining |
Dec 8 |
Tomato Workers Win Agreement with Subway
 |
|
The campaign to bring better wages and improve working conditions to Florida’s tomato fields took a big step last week when the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) reached agreement with Subway, the world’s third largest fast-food chain and biggest fast-food buyer of Florida tomatoes.
Subway also joins other fast-food industry leaders and the CIW in calling on the Florida tomato industry to institute an industry-wide penny per pound surcharge to increase wages for all Florida tomato harvesters. That means the workers will get 72 cents to 77 cents for every 32-pound bucket of tomatoes they pick, up from 40 cents to 45 cents.
Organizing & Bargaining |
Nov 27 |
Giving Thanks—and Taking Action
 |
|
Kim Bobo, executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice and author of Wage Theft in America, urges us to put the meaning of Thanksgiving into action. (Our interview with Bobo on wage theft also can be read here.)
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It is an official day to give thanks for all we have and all we can do. It is a time to relax with friends and family. Unlike some other holidays, there are few shopping expectations, house decorating requirements or religious service responsibilities. And aside from my butter-laden cooking, Thanksgiving is a day of relaxing, giving thanks and reflecting.
But the opportunity to relax, give thanks and reflect upon all we’ve been given helps us discern how we can do more or be more effective in our work for justice. Giving thanks is not a meaningless gesture. Giving thanks stops our complaining about things we want while others lack things they need. Giving thanks compels us to figure out how we can use the gifts and resources we’ve been given to help those most in need.
Organizing & Bargaining |
Sep 4 |
Five Plead Guilty to Enslaving Immigrant Farm Workers
More than 130 years after slavery was banned in the United States, five people in Immokalee, Fla., pled guilty on Tuesday, Sept. 2, to numerous charges of enslaving immigrant workers from Mexico and Guatemala, brutalizing them and forcing them to work in farm fields.
The guilty pleas prompted lawmakers, newspapers and farm worker advocates to call for immigration reform, new laws and better wages and working conditions to end this “shameful plague.”
Organizing & Bargaining |
May 24 |
Burger King Agrees to Better Wages, Conditions for Tomato Workers
Florida farm workers who harvest tomatoes for the Burger King system will see improved wages and working conditions following an historic agreement announced yesterday between the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) and the fast food giant.
The agreement follows a more than year-long drive that mobilized union members, students, religious and community activists and lawmakers in marches, rallies, congressional hearings and petition drives demanding justice for the workers.
Legislation & Politics |
Apr 15 |
Witnesses Say Congress Must Act to End Slavery in Tomato Fields
A Senate hearing on Capitol Hill today highlighted the slave-like working conditions of workers in U.S. tomato fields and the need for the Bush administration to step in and ensure that tomato pickers and other migrant workers do not endure 21st century slavery.
Testifying before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Charlie Frost, a detective with the anti-trafficking unit of the Collier County police in Naples, Fla., said slavery in the Sunshine State’s tomato fields was happening even as he spoke.
The system of recruiting, hiring and employing migrant workers allows large companies that buy the tomatoes to “remain willfully blind” to the reality of slavery and, without a doubt, the larger companies are complicit and benefit from the slavery, he testified.
