November 2007 — With shouts of determination and blessings from Roman Catholic and Jewish clergy, farmworkers and consumers took to the streets to demand Burger King work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to improve wages and conditions for farmworkers harvesting tomatoes in the fields of Florida.  Marchers from less than one year old to more than 80 cheered, sang and drummed their way through the sweltering streets of Miami, proclaiming the message “fair food will reign” across the city.

The march began at the offices of Goldman Sachs, a private equity firm that is heavily invested in Burger King. By the time the marchers were in the final miles approaching Burger King headquarters, their ranks swelled to over 1,500 people!

Once at Burger King, the CIW led a rally that included speakers from the religious, human rights, labor, grassroots and student communities.  Religious leaders from Florida delivered a letter that had been signed by more than one hundred clergy to a Burger King representative and expressed their dismay that the fast-food giant was not working with the CIW as McDonald’s and Yum! Brands had done, but were working with the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange to undermine the penny-per-pound agreements these companies had forged with the CIW. 

The Rev. Noelle Damico, national coordinator of the PC(USA) Campaign for Fair Food, lifted up the words of Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick in his letter to Burger King and the FTGE this week saying these efforts were as “morally repugnant as they were in vain.”  She insisted “The Bible is clear: God is not neutral or unconcerned somewhere off in the heavens when people are suffering, exploited or enslaved; but God intervenes to liberate, to restore and to ensure human dignity.”

The Rev. Kennedy McGowan, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, Florida, who was designated to speak on behalf of the Presbytery of Tropical Florida, announced to the crowd that he was “ashamed that Burger King was behaving this way” and he promised that Burger King will find that it “needs to have it God’s way, which is the way of justice.”  The crowd roared as Amy Robinson, M.Div. student at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, announced that the seminary had joined the Alliance for Fair Food and was standing side by side with the CIW.

A high point in the rally came as members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers explained that since Burger King has been saying that they were not poor, that executives should walk a mile in their shoes. Literally. The CIW brought pairs of shoes, dirty from being worn in the fields and announced that they would present them to Burger King.  The Rev. Damico of the PC(USA) and Gerardo Reyes Chavez of the CIW successfully negotiated with police to let three workers pass on to Burger King’s property with pairs of shoes. These shoes were received by a communications person from Burger King whose face was filled with tearful emotion as she took them from the workers.

The rally concluded with a moving interfaith candlelight vigil for farmworker justice. As the sky darkened,  the light of hundreds of candles illumined the street in front of Burger King as clergy and farmworkers led the crowd in prayer. Among the clergy was the Rev. Miguel Fernando Estrada Salvador of Beth-El Farmworker Ministry, a Reformed spiritual presence in Immokalee that is supported by the Peace River and Tampa Bay Presbyteries, who prayed movingly that justice would be realized for the farmworkers.

The next morning folks gathered for “Our World, Our Rights” a conference that explored the intersections between the Campaign for Fair Food and efforts to realize human rights and global justice. Following the scintillating conference which was attended by several hundred people, crowds gathered to hear best-selling author Naomi Klein discuss the significance of the Burger King campaign as musicians from across the country kept energy high.