Posts tagged Subway
Article posted 2 December 2008 Victory to the farmworkers! Coalition of Immokalee Workers announces that Subway has signed on to the penny-per-pound pass-through agreement	 posted 7pm / revised 10pm
Fellow workers,
The Blockheads of the world may insist that unions survive only through violence, and win only through either the intervention of the State or vigilantism against non-unionized fellow workers. Yet somehow, today, I find this message from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers — and a similar e-mail from their allies in the Student/Farmworker Alliance — a southern Florida farmworker's union that uses nonviolent protest, secondary boycotts, and other creative pressure campaigns on behalf of Florida tomato pickers, and which (because it is a farmworkers' union) has no access at all to the government labor relations bureaucracy. Somehow, they have survived. Somehow, they have won — again.
From: Coalition of Immokalee Workers
Date: 11:29 AM
To: announce@lists.ciw-online.org
Subject: [CIW News] SUBWAY SIGNS!
Subway, the third largest fast-food chain in the world and the biggest fast-food buyer of Florida tomatoes, reached an agreement this morning with the CIW to help improve wages and working conditions for the workers who pick their tomatoes!
Be sure to visit http://www.ciw-online.org for a photo of the signing and check back soon for more details about this exciting development in the Campaign for Fair Food.
If you are planning a protest as part of the Northeast tour, we ask you to stand down. The tour will still be hitting the road to visit Northeast with news of this newest victory and information on where the Campaign for Fair Food will head next. An updated schedule of events will be posted on the website soon.
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers
For those keeping track at home, here's the timeline of C.I.W. victories in the penny-per-pound campaign:
April 2001: C.I.W. launches the Boycott the Bell campaign against Taco Bell, the first campaign to pressure a fast food restaurant into joining the penny-per-pound pass-through program to improve the piece rate for Florida tomato pickers.
March 2005 — 4 years later: The C.I.W. announces victory in the Taco Bell campaign after four years of negotiations, boycotts, protests, and, finally, a hardball campaign to enlist sympathetic student groups to Boot the Bell by pressuring their colleges and high schools to cancel or call off food-service contracts with Taco Bell. Taco Bell now becomes the first fast food provider to voluntarily pass through money to increase farmworkers' wages. The C.I.W. announces that it will now turn its attention to getting similar agreements from other large fast-food chains like McDonald's and Burger King.
April 2007 — 2 years after that: The C.I.W. announces victory with a penny-per-pound agreement from McDonald's. It takes two years of negotiations and a low-intensity pressure campaign; just after the C.I.W. announces it is about to escalate with another Taco Bell-style boycott and Truth Tour, McDonald's signs on for the agreement. The C.I.W. announces that it will organize its next campaign, focusing on Burger King.
May 2008 — 1 year after that: The C.I.W. announces victory with a penny-per-pound agreement from Burger King after a year of negotiations, some very dirty dealing by Burger King (most of which came back to haunt them when it was exposed), public protests by the C.I.W. and its allies, and national press attention from journalists who supported the C.I.W. and opposed Burger King's union busting tactics. 13 months after the C.I.W. began its Burger King campaign, Burger King announces that it will sign on for the penny-per-pound agreement. The C.I.W. announces that it will organize campaigns to get new agreements from fast-food restaurants and grocery stores like Whole Foods, Subway, and Chipotle, which sell themselves as healthy, sustainable businesses.
September 2008 — 4 months after that: The C.I.W. announces victory with a penny-per-pound agreement from Whole Foods. The C.I.W. announces that it will turn its attention to escalating their campaigns to win similar agreements from Subway and Chipotle.
December 2008 — 3 months after that: After seven months of negotiations, and three months of a low-intensity pressure campaign (focusing on getting supporters to send postcards to Subway's CEO), the C.I.W. announces plans to launch a multi-city protest Truth Tour in the northeast. Just before the tour begins, Subway agrees to sign on to the penny-per-pound agreement.
If the accelerating trend continues, we can expect the next C.I.W. victory to be announced some time around late January or February. (Except for Whole Foods being two months early, the time it takes for each new victory has consistently followed a geometric decay curve. That can't last forever, but here's hoping it holds for a while yet.) In any case, this is a big win, and it�??s hardly the end. The C.I.W. is still fighting to get an agreement from Chipotle, and is preparing to organize pressure campaigns for other supermarkets and food service outfits. There�??s a lot more yet to come.
Fellow workers, the C.I.W.'s ongoing series of inspiring victories for Florida farmworkers are both an inspiration and a reminder. We should never forget the power of creative extremism and wildcat unionism — a power that needs no government, no ballot boxes, no political bosses, no Officially Recognized labor bureaucrats, no lawyers, and no Changeling political parties. It's the power that fellow worker Joe Ettor reminded us all of, as he and his fellow workers struggled to a hard-won victory in the great Bread and Roses textile strike of 1912, when he said:
If the workers of the world want to win, all they have to do is recognize their own solidarity. They have nothing to do but fold their arms and the world will stop. The workers are more powerful with their hands in their pockets than all the property of the capitalists. As long as the workers keep their hands in their pockets, the capitalists cannot put theirs there. With passive resistance, with the workers absolutely refusing to move, lying absolutely silent, they are more powerful than all the weapons and instruments that the other side has for attack.
Yes, we can do it–ourselves. And we will.
¡La lucha sigue–victory to the farmworkers!
GT 2008-09-10: ¡Sí se puede! Coalition of Immokalee Workers announces another victory in penny-per-pound agreement with Whole Foods
GT 2008-09-08: Slavery in Florida's tomato fields
GT 2008-07-03: ¡Chipotle, escucha: estamos en la lucha!
GT 2008-05-27: Even better than I thought: victory for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers against the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, too
GT 2008-05-23: ¡Sí se puede! Victory for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in the Burger King penny-per-pound campaign
GT 2007-12-06: Solidaridad
GT 2007-11-30: Coalition of Immokalee Workers marches in Miami
GT 2007-04-19: ¡Sí se puede! The CIW wins a groundbreaking wages and conditions agreement with McDonald�??s
GT 2005-03-31: Anarquistas por La Causa
GT 2005-03-23: ¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!
GT 2001-08-30: ¡Sí se puede!
Fellow Workers ∙ Politics ∙ Smash the State
Burger King ∙ Chipotle ∙ Coalition of Immokalee Workers ∙ Florida ∙ Immokalee ∙ Industrial Workers of the World ∙ Joe Ettor ∙ McDonald's ∙ Student-Farmworker Alliance ∙ Subway ∙ Taco Bell ∙ Whole Foods
Posted by Rad Geek, 7:47pm. TrackBack4 Comments on GT 2008-12-02:
Nick Manley: And Progressives say centralism gets the goods... ( : Read Moreof comment from 2008-12-03 6:30:44 am
Araglin: Excellent! My only fear here is that these hard-won victories will be largely un-done as the purchasing power of the… Read Moreof comment from 2008-12-03 7:59:02 am
Eppur Si Muove | Austro-Athenian Empire: [...] Some of my right-libertarian comrades seem to think that labour unions can succeed only by violent means, whether directly… Read Moreof comment from 2009-06-11 5:34:53 am
Rad Geek People's Daily 2012-10-19 – Coalition of Immokalee Workers victory in Denver; struggle in Miami: [...] As I wrote a few years later, after their victory in a campaign to win an agreement from Subway:… Read Moreof comment from 2012-10-19 4:06:46 pm
Article posted 3 July 2008 ¡Chipotle, escucha: estamos en la lucha!	 posted 6am
Here is what Coalition of Immokalee Workers organizer Lucas Benitez had to say at a press conference celebrating the C.I.W.'s remarkable victory in the Burger King penny-per-pound passthrough campaign:
Dr. Martin Luther King said it best when he said, The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
Social responsibility in this country's food industry is inevitable, and though the exploitation of Florida's farmworkers remains unconscionable today, company by company we are building a path toward justice. The next steps are up to those companies that stand before us in the road ahead.
There are companies — like Chipotle in the restaurant world and Whole Foods in the grocery industry — that already make claims to social responsibility yet, when it comes to tomatoes, fall far short of their lofty claims. It is time, now, that those companies live out the true meaning of their marketers' words.
And there are companies — like Subway and WalMart — that, by the sheer volume of their purchases, profit like few others from the pernicious poverty of workers in Florida's fields. They, too, must step up now. After eight years of this campaign — and the very public commitment of the three largest fast-food companies in the world to the principles of Fair Food — they can no longer claim ignorance of the problem nor can they say that the solution is not possible.
So to all of you who have marched with us, organized petition drives with us, prayed with us, and struggled with us, today is a day to celebrate this hard-fought victory. Tomorrow, with renewed energy and purpose, we begin our work again to make respect for fundamental human rights in Florida's tomato fields truly universal.
— Lucas Benitez, quoted in Coalition of Immokalee Workers Breaking News (2008-06-09): The Road Ahead in the Campaign for Fair Food!
The C.I.W. and the Student-Farmworker Alliance are taking the fight to Chipotle, a corporation supposedly priding itself on food with integrity, with whom they have repeatedly tried to meet for negotiations, but who responded by claiming that they would investigate (ah, investigation; cf. suggestions #3 and #6), and, in the meantime, would suspend buying from Florida growers (!), rather than simply taking direct action, as they easily could, to raise Florida tomato-pickers piece rate by passing through the extra penny per pound. In April, C.I.W. and SFA organized protests at Chipotle headquarters in Denver. The C.I.W. has released a one page letter that you can print and deliver to the manager of your local Chipotle restaurants. I'm not a fan of the complaints of being excluded from the normal regime of federal labor regulation on wages, conditions, and organizing; the denial of that bureaucratic crutch and shackle is precisely what has freed the C.I.W. to use the kind of fight-to-win tactics that they are using, and to win the impressive victories that they have won. Other than that regrettable cap-doffing to the State labor bureaucracy, however, it's clear, to the point, and offers a quick and easy opportunity for you (yes, you) to get involved in the beginnings of what's sure to emerge as another creative, powerful, and ultimately victorious bottom-up, decentralized campaign of agitation and radical labor solidarity. Here's the text of the letter:
Dear Chipotle Manager,
Chipotle Mexican Grill has been presented with the opportunity to foster real social responsibility in its tomato supply chain by working with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), an organization of farmworkers that has been internationally recognized for its work defending basic human rights. Instead, Chipotle claims to have suspended purchases of Florida tomatoes while it unilaterally investigates already well-documented human rights abuses in Florida�??s fields.
The supposed need for an investigation of the human rights crisis in Florida�??s fields today is mystifying. According to readily available Department of Labor statistics, tomato pickers in Florida face deplorable conditions, including:
Sub-poverty wages — Tomato pickers make, on average, $10,000/year;
No raise in nearly 30 years — Pickers are paid virtually the same per bucket piece rate (roughly 45 cents per 32 lb. bucket) today as they were in 1980. At today�??s rate, workers have to pick nearly 2.5 TONS of tomatoes just to earn minimum wage for a typical 10-hr day;
Denial of fundamental labor rights — Farmworkers in Florida have no right to overtime pay, even when working 60-70 hour weeks, and no right to organize or bargain collectively.
Even worse, numerous modern-day slavery rings, in which workers are held against their will and forced to work through violence or threats of violence, continue to operate in the fields. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) has assisted the Department of Justice in uncovering, investigating, and successfully prosecuting 5 such cases — involving more than 1,000 workers — since 1997.
The three largest fast-food companies in the world have recognized these dehumanizing conditions and moved to address them, giving workers new hope for meaningful reform in the nation's agricultural industry. In 2005, after a 4-year national consumer boycott, Yum Brands (parent company of Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut and others) reached an historic agreement with the CIW to directly improve wages and working conditions in its tomato suppliers�?? operations by paying a penny more per pound for its tomatoes and working with the CIW to implement an enforceable code of conduct to protect farmworkers�?? rights. McDonald's and Burger King followed suit in 2007 and 2008, respectively, reaching agreements with the CIW that met and expanded upon the Yum! Brands accord. All three fast-food leaders have recognized the fact that their high volume purchases of tomatoes give them the leverage they need to demand more humane working conditions in their suppliers�?? fields.
Chipotle however, has remained indifferent to the deplorable conditions faced by workers in its tomato supply chain. Nearly two years have passed since Chipotle launched its investigation and many questions now beg to be answered. Where are the results of Chipotle�??s inquiry into Florida�??s farm labor conditions? Where has Chipotle been purchasing tomatoes in the meantime, and how do workers fare in those fields? Is Chipotle actually supplying its East Coast restaurants with tomatoes from Mexico (the only other viable option to Florida tomatoes during nearly half the year), despite the immense increase in the cost and carbon footprint of Chipotle�??s food that would result from such a decision? Or is Chipotle still in fact purchasing Florida tomatoes, despite its claims to have suspended purchases from Florida? Are transparency and human rights not a part of Chipotle�??s definition of Integrity ?
Please contact Chipotle Corporate Headquarters in Denver and let them know that you and your customers want them to join with Yum, McDonald�??s and Burger King as leaders in true corporate social responsibility by:
Paying a penny more per pound for the tomatoes that Chipotle purchases and ensuring that this increase is passed along to tomato pickers in the form of increased wages; and
Working with the CIW to implement an enforceable code of conduct to ensure fair and safe working conditions for farmworkers in Chipotle�??s tomato supply chain.
— Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Dear Chipotle Manager
Print yourself out a copy and deliver it to your local Chipotle to explain why this issue will affect your burrito-purchasing decisions in the future.
More action alerts and a flyer about Chipotle that you can hang locally are promised soon. Keep an eye out for it: this should get interesting, and there's likely to be a lot more to come.
Victory to the farmworkers!
Fellow Workers ∙ Politics ∙ Power to the People ∙ Smash the State ∙ Take Action
Burger King ∙ Chipotle ∙ Coalition of Immokalee Workers ∙ Colorado ∙ Denver ∙ Martin Luther King ∙ Student-Farmworker Alliance ∙ Subway ∙ Wal-Mart ∙ Whole Foods
Natasha: Is there no major food business not affected by this? The C.I.W. has already successfully used non-violent tactics to change… Read Moreof comment from 2008-07-03 9:09:43 am
Schizo: "McDonald's... followed suit...reaching agreements with the CIW...Chipotle however, has remained indifferent" This is particularly odd because Chipotle is owned… Read Moreof comment from 2008-07-03 11:05:54 am
Rad Geek: Natasha, Well, anyone who sells fresh tomatoes from Florida is affected. I think that the C.I.W. has chosen to… Read Moreof comment from 2008-07-03 1:02:03 pm
Rad Geek People's Daily 2012-10-19 – Coalition of Immokalee Workers victory in Denver; struggle in Miami: [...] Denver — victory in the long-running Chipotle campaign [...] Read Moreof comment from 2012-10-19 3:35:21 pm
Rad Geek People's Daily 2014-01-28 – Welcome, Reasoners: [...] GT 2008-07-03: ¡Chipotle, escucha: estamos en la lucha! [...] Read Moreof comment from 2014-01-28 11:20:02 am