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News and Photo Galleries |
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Witness inside and outside Burger King’s annual meeting
November 2007 – As shareholders arrived at Burger King’s annual meeting on Thursday, Nov. 29, they were greeted with a large banner that read “Burger King Exploits Farmworkers.” Meanwhile, inside the meeting Lucas Benitez, a farmworker and one of the founders of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, addressed the shareholders during their open question portion of the meeting (which is required of all public companies by the S.E.C.). [Read Lucas’ address.] |
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Stated Clerk to BK and FL Growers: We Are Prepared to Go the Distance!
Clifton Kirkpatrick
November 2007 – On the heels of public revelations that Burger King and the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, the growers’ lobby, have been cooperating to roll back the CIW’s agreements with Yum! Brands and McDonald’s, the Rev. Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, writes:
"In the course of history there have always been those who have opposed the advancement of human rights. But the fundamental truth of human dignity has always triumphed, if not immediately, then eventually. Burger King and the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange (FTGE) are using their power to try and turn back the inevitable progress of human rights for farmworkers. And their coordinated tactics, which squarely target some of the poorest, most vulnerable members of our society, are as morally repugnant as they are in vain ….
"The intransigence and duplicity of Burger King and the FTGE may delay justice for those who supply their tomatoes. And as Dr. King said, 'Justice delayed is justice denied.' But they will not prevail. We are prepared to do what it takes, as long as it takes, walking hand in hand with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and all consumers of conscience to achieve the basic human rights for these farmworkers to which other industry leaders have committed." [Read the full statement]
Read the press coverage and CIW’s analysis of the latest developments. |
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CIW Wins International Anti-Slavery Award
November 2007 — Anti-Slavery International, founded in 1839, is the world's oldest international human rights organization. On Nov. 11th ASI announced that the CIW has been selected as the recipient of this premiere prize for their “extraordinary contribution toward tackling modern-day slavery in the United States agricultural industry.” The PC(USA) nominated the CIW for this award in the spring and we are delighted they’ve been selected because it underscores not only the CIW’s ground-breaking and effective work, but also the very serious human rights abuses that are alive and well in the agricultural industry today. [Learn more]
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A boy writes a letter to the CEO of Burger King. Photo by Noelle Damico. Children and Youth Write to Burger King CEO
October 2007 – All across the country children in church school have been using the new Fair Food curriculum and writing to Mr. John Chidsey, CEO of Burger King. Their letters are eloquent and moving. Fast-food companies target our children with toys and promotions designed to get them to buy their food. Who better than children and youth themselves, to lead the campaign for fair food? Like Samuel who was called as a youth to be a prophet, these young witnesses are making a difference. Read excerpts from the letters. |
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Ecumenical Leaders Urge BK to Work with CIW
October 2007 – The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is proud to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with leaders from the wider faith community who are calling on Burger King to work with the CIW to guarantee justice and human rights to the farmworkers harvesting tomatoes to its suppliers. Below are links to letters representing from the growing chorus for fair food.
Earlier this month, Roman Catholic Archbishop John Favalora of Miami is the latest Christian leader to write a public letter to Burger King CEO John Chidsey, urging Mr. Chidsey to work with the CIW to guarantee "justice and fairness for those who provide manual labor in the fields." Read the full letter  .
The Rev. Michael Livingston, President of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
Bishop Timothy Whitaker, United Methodist Church, Florida Conference
Bishop Leo Frade, Episcopal Church Diocese of Southeast Florida.
The Rev. Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the PC(USA) |
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Sept. – Oct. 2007
Farmworkers visited 13 cities, holding workshops and protests along the way — laying the groundwork for the national mobilization at Burger King headquarters in Miami set for November 30 — December 2. Presbyterians in Florida provided housing and food, host educational forums and invite CIW to their worship. View the Daily Truth Tour Report and Photo Journal. Wondering why there was a truth tour? Read the CIW’s announcement or read the announcement online. |
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Sept. 2007 — The Stated Clerk of the General Assembly publicly calls upon Steven Grover, vice president at Burger King, to immediately retract disparaging and inaccurate comments he made to the press about the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) and the CIW’s ground-breaking agreements with Yum! Brands and McDonald’s Corporations. [read the full letter]
Read “Kirkpatrick to Burger King: retract ‘false’ statements”, 10/02/07, Presbyterian News Service, Evan Silverstein.
Read CIW’s response to Burger King
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It Costs Tomato Growers Nothing To Back Farmworkers’ Efforts
Oct. 2007 — Read the Rev. Noelle Damico’s guest opinion piece in the Naples Daily News (9/30/07) where she responds to growers’ claims that farmworkers are not poor.
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The Coalition of Immokalee Workers lauded in new book on slavery
The book cover of Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy. Photo courtesty of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. Sept. 2007 — “Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy” by John Bowe is hitting bookstores this week. The book details the horrific conditions in the fields of Florida as well as the CIW’s innovative efforts to expose and address modern day slavery. Read an excerpt published by the Wall Street Journal. Bowe, a respected journalist who covered the CIW’s anti-slavery work for the New Yorker Magazine in 2003, the book has received rave reviews. Consider it for your church’s book study. It’s a great way to introduce congregations to why it is necessary to eradicate the economic practices which allow slavery to flourish. And your voice matters. Join with consumers of conscience across the nation to demand Burger King and other fast-food corporations work with the CIW to address exploitation in their supply chains! Don’t delay, take action! |
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The campaign continues to convince Burger King to change its purchasing practices so farmworkers receive fair wages. Photo courtesy of Jeff Crespi. CIW Holds Successful FL-wide Truth Tour
Sept. 2007 — Farmworkers are visiting 13 cities, holding workshops and protests along the way — laying the groundwork for the national mobilization at Burger King headquarters in Miami set for November 30 — December 2. Presbyterians in all Florida presbyteries are on the move to provide housing and food, host educational forums and invite CIW to their worship. View the Daily Truth Tour Report and Photo Journal. If you’re in Florida, your help is needed. Read the CIW’s announcement which lists all the cities (or read the announcement online) and contact the Rev. Noelle Damico to get involved. Learn other ways to take action. |
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McDonald’s Truth Tour 2007: Behind the Golden Arches
February 2007 — The Coalition of Immokalee Workers are planning a multi-city truth tour to expose the truth about farmworker exploitation that lies behind the “golden arches.”
The tour will culminate with a mass rally at McDonald’s global headquarters in Oak Brook, Ill., on Friday, April 13, and a Carnaval Parade for Fair Food in downtown Chicago on Saturday, April 14. Religious and human rights notables such as the Rev. Michael Livingston, President of the National Council of Churches, Delores Huerta, co-founder of the UFW, and Kerry Kennedy will join the CIW in calling on McDonald’s to work with the CIW to end the exploitation of farmworkers in its tomato supply chain. [Read full article and get tour schedule] |
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Yum! Brands extends agreement with CIW to ALL its restaurants
May 2007 — On Thursday, May 17, Yum! Brands announced that it has extended the 2005 agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers that improved wages and working conditions for farmworkers harvesting tomatoes for Taco Bell to the other four of its brands. Jonathan Blum, Executive Vice President for Yum! Brands explained to the Associated Press,“ it's an important thing to be supportive of the CIW and we hope other restaurants and supermarkets will follow suit."
Will Burger King join McDonald’s, Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver’s and A&W Restaurants in working with the CIW? Let BK know you want fair food that ensures the human rights of farmworkers. Take action!
Read the AP Story on the Extension of the Yum-CIW Agreement in Business Week.
Read more about the CIW-Yum! Brands Agreement.
Yum! Brands expands deal with tomato pickers to all its restaurants. |
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CIW and McDonald’s reach agreement; Focus turns to Burger King
Seated from left: Buddy McEntire of McEntire Produce; Bob Langert, Vice President for Corporate Social Responsibility at McDonald's; Lucas Benitez, Coalition of Immokalee Workers; and Tom Crick, Senior Political Analyst, Conflict Resolution Program for the Carter Center. Photo courtesy of CIW Online. With the arrival of the 2007 Truth Tour in Chicago just days away, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, McDonald's and its suppliers gathered at the Carter Center in Atlanta on Monday, April 9, to announce an agreement that is the cornerstone for industry-wide change. The agreement guarantees:
- A penny more per pound to workers harvesting tomatoes for McDonald's;
- A stronger code of conduct based on the principle of worker participation;
- And a collaborative effort to develop a third party mechanism for monitoring conditions in the fields and investigating workers' complaints of abuse.
The agreement was cause for celebration as well as a rerouting of the McDonald’s Truth Tour at the very last minute, due to the need to be in Atlanta an extra day. Presbyterians in Urbana, Ill., whose stop needed to be cancelled understood this as an Easter moment and found wonderful ways to share the meals and joy they had prepared for the farmworkers’ visit. Read this great story from Pastor Don Mason of First Presbyterian Church, Urbana, Ill.
On Friday, April 13, the farmworkers and their allies celebrated with a conference and rally at DuPage University in Glen Ellyn, Ill. The Rev. Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, and Linda Valentine, Executive Director of the General Assembly Council, opened the rally with congratulatory words. Other speakers included the Rev. Michael Livingston, President of the National Council of Churches, Delores Huerta, co-founder of United Farm Workers, and governmental and labor leaders. Following the celebration rally, buses took workers to nearby Burger King restaurants for peaceful protests, calling on the fast food giant to change course and work with the CIW to improve wages and working conditions in the Florida tomato fields.
Truth Tour participants rallied outside two Chicago-area Burger Kings. The celebration continued on Saturday, April 14 as the threat of freezing rain forced the CIW to cancel its Parade for Fair Food and to move the massive rally set for Chicago’s Federal Plaza indoors to the House of Blues at the last moment. More than 2000 people filled the House of Blues to capacity and thousands were sadly turned from the door with sincerest apologies from CIW because of limited space. After rousing speeches by religious, student and labor allies of CIW and phenomenal sets by local and nationally known musicians, Lucas Benitez and other members of the Coalition took the stage. They announced that the fair food movement will now squarely focus its energy on Burger King. The CIW has given Burger King until the end of this year to come to the table or face an intensification of the campaign. Then Tom Morello and Zack de la Rocha, former leaders of the innovative rock group, Rage Against the Machine, then took the stage and debuted a song written about CIW and the Campaign for Fair Food. See video of the event (must have quicktime to view clip).
The PC(USA) has joined with the CIW and other members of the Alliance for Fair Food in calling on Burger King to work with the CIW since the CIW’s March 2005 agreement with Taco Bell. Clifton Kirkpatrick has written two public letters to Burger King’s CEO, the most recent in January of 2007. Presbyterians have written letters and joined in rallies to urge the company to work with the farmworkers. In February, after two years of quiet talks with the CIW Burger King made a surprise announcement that it would not work with CIW but would send recruiters to Immokalee and consider possible charitable contributions to Immokalee based non-profits to “improve farmworkers’ lives.” These efforts were widely decried by the farmworkers, human rights and religious leaders who insist that farmworkers do not need charity; they need to be paid fairly for the work they do. Read the background stories here. |
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CIW and allies to Burger King: It’s time for the King to do the right thing!
Press conference at Burger King. Photo by Noelle Damico. Feb. 15, 2007 – CIW and allies from the faith, human rights, student, labor and grassroots communities held a press conference outside of Burger King’s Miami-based headquarters declaring the inauguration of a “truth campaign” about farmworker exploitation in their supply chain. The Rev. Noelle Damico of the PC(USA)’s Campaign for Fair Food was among the religious leaders who spoke. She insisted that a proven model for advancing farmworker’s human rights is the agreement between Yum! Brands and CIW. All that is missing is Burger King’s willingness. [Read about Burger King's reaction] |
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Stated Clerk calls on Burger King: Work with CIW
Jan. 2006 — In a public letter dated January 10, 2007, the Rev. Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the PC(USA), wrote to Mr. John Chidsey, CEO of Burger King urging the hamburger giant to work with the CIW to improve wages and end human rights abuses in the fields of its tomato suppliers. Noting that he had written to Burger King more than a year earlier and that the company has taken no action, Kirkpatrick insists “This is not the time for Burger King to stand on the sidelines of history. Your commitment is needed now.”
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Florida labor camp owners found guilty in slavery case
 East Palatka labor camp. Photo courtesy of CIW. A federal jury in Jacksonville, Fla., found Ron Evans, Sr. and his wife, labor camp owners on fields owned by the 2004 chair of the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association, guilty of luring homeless people into a “form of servitude” and supplying them with crack cocaine and alcohol to keep them indebted.
CIW first brought the case to the attention of authorities and assisted in its prosecution.
“Labor Camp Owners Guilty of Enslaving Workers,” by Evan Silverstein, Presbyterian News Service Story
For CIW’s reflection on the conviction and stories from the Washington Post, New York Times and Fayetteville Observer visit CIW online.
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Jonathan Blum, senior vice president of Yum! Brands, shook hands with Lucas Benitez, a CIW leader and co-founder. Photo by Evan Silverstein.
CIW and Yum! Brands reach historic agreement; A victory for human rights
This agreement is the precedent-setting, first step in achieving industry-wide change. Stay tuned for next steps in the campaign for fair food! |
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On behalf of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) I commend the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the McDonald’s Corporation, and McDonald’s suppliers on the historic agreement that they have forged to improve wages and guarantee human rights for farmworkers harvesting tomatoes in the fields of Florida. The farmworkers have carried forward their campaign for fair food with integrity and dedication and the McDonald’s Corporation has taken a leadership role in moving the fast-food industry toward more just way of doing business. The Presbyterian Church is particularly grateful for the role that the Carter Center has played in fostering dialogue among the parties that led to this significant agreement. [Read the entire release] |
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Shareholder resolution calling for human rights in McDonald’s supply chain moves forward
In a March 22nd letter to McDonald’s Corporation from the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC announced that it was “unable to concur” with McDonald’s attempts to exclude a shareholder resolution submitted by Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) allies from the McDonald’s 2007 Proxy Statement. As such, McDonald’s shareholders should have the opportunity to vote on the resolution, entitled “Human Rights Standards,” at the McDonald's Annual Meeting in May.
The resolution urges the Board of Directors to adopt, implement and enforce a revised company-wide Code of Conduct, inclusive of suppliers and sub-contractors, based on the International Labor Organization's ("ILO") Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and other relevant ILO conventions.
The PC(USA)’s Campaign for Fair Food, as well as the primary filers (the Adrian Dominican Sisters and the AFL-CIO Reserve Fund), and the CIW encourage all institutional and individual shareholders to vote for this resolution as a way of advancing farmworkers’ human rights and socially responsible purchasing within the McDonald’s Corporation and its supply chain. Read more about the SEC ruling and related news at the CIW Web site. |
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Religious leaders flock to sign letter to McDonald’s
The Rev. Dr. Bob Edgar, General Secretary of the NCC, signs a letter to McDonald's Corporation. Photo by Noelle Damico
March 9, 2007 — The energy was high as religious leaders attending the National Council of Church’s Education and Advocacy Days stood in line to sign a letter to McDonald’s decrying the human rights abuses faced by farmworkers picking for the fast-food giant’s suppliers. After a rousing sermon by the Rev. Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick, Stated Clerk of the PC(USA)’s General Assembly, people of faith stood 5 deep in order to witness to their hope that McDonald’s ensure the human rights of the men and women harvesting their tomatoes.
Would you like to sign the letter? Send us your full name, title, congregation, address and email. Periodically we’ll be sending this letter again to McDonald’s with additional signatures.
Read the full letter
Signatories of religious leaders on the letter to Mr. Jim Skinner, CEO of McDonald’s — 3/26/07
Learn more about Ag-Mart and the FFVA
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