Congressional Leaders Sign CIW Petition and Call Hearings
March 2008 — On Thursday, March 13, Congressional leaders and representatives from the human rights, labor, religious and student communities gathered on Capitol Hill to sign the CIW’s Petition to End Modern-Day Slavery and Sweatshops in the Fields. Political leaders announced Congressional Hearings and sent letters to major grocery chains that supply the federal government.
Rep. John Conyers, Sen. Bernie Sanders. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Sen. Richard Durbin. Photo by Fritz Meyer. A press conference overlooking the Capitol building was organized by Senator Bernie Sanders who was joined by Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and RFK Center Director Monika Kalra Varma. The Rev. Noelle Damico, national coordinator of the PC(USA) Campaign for
Fair Food, was among religious leaders who participated in the signing ceremony.
In addition to decrying the exploitative conditions under which farmworkers in Florida labor and the refusal of Burger King to work with the CIW as McDonald's and Yum! Brands have done, Senator Sanders also announced that a congressional hearing into the business practices of Burger King and other food industry leaders and the role of those practices in creating adverse conditions for men and women harvesting tomatoes in the Florida fields has been scheduled for later this spring.
Senators Durbin and Sanders also sent letters, along with Senators Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), to seven of the largest grocery and food service companies urging them to participate in a proposed initiative to increase the piece rate that tomato workers in Immokalee, Florida are paid. These companies supply produce to the US government.
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