By Lauren Sage Reinlie
November 2003; pages 8-9, 15; Number 3.
Issue

In front of a crowd of people huddled together outside of the Texas Union on the UT campus, a student in a red, round suit stood holding a sign above her head that read "Wages so bad, Even tomatoes are sad." Behind her blazed the familiar letters of one of the world's largest fast-food chains - Taco Bell.

Students and community members gathered on October 8 to demonstrate in solidarity with migrant farmworkers who are asking Taco Bell and their parent company, Yum! Brands Inc., to increase wages and the quality of working conditions for farmworkers who pick their tomatoes.

The demonstration started with about 40 people holding signs, shaking noisemakers and chanting slogans at the Taco Bell at 2800 Guadalupe. They then marched towards campus, garnering the support of over 100 people in front of the Texas Union. The demonstration marked the beginning of a campaign at the University to remove Taco Bell from the Texas Union, where thousands of people from the UT community eat every day.

Members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a community-based farmworker organization, joined the demonstrators. CIW is working on a Boot the Bell campaign across the nation and have helped remove from or prevent the inclusion of Taco Bells or Taco Bell products on 17 university and high school campuses across the country. CIW has asked for students' help in working to get Taco Bell to acknowledge their power to influence workers' situations.

"Students have to wake up and realize how much power they have to start democratizing a corporation like this," said Lucas Benetiz, CIW member and recent recipient of the 2003 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award.

Day-to-Day Life of Migrant Farmworkers

Farmworkers in the Immokalee area earn between 40 and 50 cents for every 32-lb. bucket of tomatoes they pick. The average salary for farmworkers in the United States is $7,500 a year.

According to an article in The New Yorker on April 21, farmworkers in South Florida go home at the end of their workdays with little to no profit for themselves. Employers take out fees for check cashing, transportation to and from work, food, rent, and work equipment before giving workers their final pay. What little money the workers do receive they often spend on food in employer-owned restaurants.

The workers are denied the rights to organize and receive overtime pay and health insurance.

Most farmworkers in Florida came to the United States from Mexico in search of work. Due to the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the continued subsidization of large-scale agribusinesses by the U.S. government, the United States and Canada have been able to push cheap agricultural products into Mexico and, making it increasingly difficult for Mexican farmers to sell their own crops.

These displaced farmworkers travel across the border into the United States in search of work, only to be faced with unlivable wages, overcrowded housing and dangerous working conditions. Some find themselves trapped by fear and violence, being held as modern-day slaves.

In an article printed in The New Yorker on April 21, the author cited a Department of Justice official who referred to South Florida as "ground zero for modern slavery." Six cases of involuntary servitude have been prosecuted in the United States in the past six years.

The CIW was integral in the prosecution of five of the slavery cases. These cases involved tomato pickers in the Immokalee area, located in the heart of Florida's $600 million tomato industry. Gerardo Reyes, CIW member, said the coalition investigated the slavery cases and helped slaves escape in order to become witnesses in the prosecution of slave-owners.

"We put all this proof right in front of them on the desk ... And what do think their answer was? 'That would be ridiculous. That would be very risky for our FBI agents to go in there. It would be better if you guys would do it,'" he said. "We had to go into the field and help some escape because the FBI wasn't capable of doing it."

Reyes said that a person who is convicted of possession of one pound of cocaine could be sentenced to 30 years in prison, but "for enslaving workers you're only sentenced to 15 years in prison. And this was a case where over 700 workers were enslaved."

The CIW has grown to over 2,000 members since its inception in 1995. Benetiz said he happened to be in the right place and the right time to begin to demand rights for the farmworkers.

"It was all because of injuries and suffering we had to live in the field," Benetiz said. "It was time to wake up and tell the world that we're here and we deserve to be treated like human beings."

The Taco Bell Connection

South Florida farmworkers supply millions of pounds of tomatoes, either directly or indirectly, through private firms to grocery stores and corporations such as Taco Bell, Burger King and McDonald's.

The CIW began their campaign to claim rights for farmworkers by focusing on the growers, but found that the growers did not incite the changes they were looking for, said Francisca Cortez, member of the CIW.

"Every time you see a tomato, I want you now to think of all the situations that could be behind that tomato." - Gerardo Reyes, member of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. - Farmworkers who pick for Florida growers who sell tomatoes to Taco Bell earn between 40- 50 cents for every 32-lb. bucket of tomatoes they pick. - At this rate, farmworkers must pick two tons of tomatoes to make $50 a day. - The median annual income for farmworkers is $7,500, according to the Department of Labor. - The CIW is asking Taco Bell to pay one penny more per pound of tomatoes it buys from Florida growers. - If Taco Bell passed the cost of the increase in what they pay per pound of tomatoes onto the consumer it would cost the consumer 1/4 of one cent more for a chalupa. Statistics from CIW website. Photos of Oct. 8 demonstrations by Leah Caldwell.

"[The growers] are starting to respect us more, but the real change we're looking for we haven't been able to get through them, because they don't have a public face," Cortez said. "That's why we're focusing on Taco Bell. Taco Bell has the power to bring the growers to the negotiating table, which they have never wanted to do."

Taco Bell is owned by Yum! Brands Inc., a Fortune 300 company which also owns KFC, Pizza Hut, Long John Silvers and A&W restaurants. Yum! Brands owns more than 30,000 restaurants worldwide, and, in 2002, it made over $22 billion in sales.

Yum! Brands, upon pressure from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, has instated an Animal Welfare Program guaranteeing that their suppliers use humane procedures in caring for and handling the animals they supply to the company's restaurants.

"As a major purchaser of food products, we have the opportunity, and responsibility, to influence the way animals supplied to us are treated," according to the Yum! Brands website.

However, when discussing the CIW and working conditions for farmworkers supplying their tomatoes, Jonathan Blum, vice-president for public relations of Yum! Brands Inc, told the New Yorker reporter, "It's a labor dispute between a company that is unrelated to Taco Bell and its workers. We don't believe it's our place to get involved in another company's labor dispute involving its employees."

As a large corporation, Yum! Brands has admitted it has the power to demand that their suppliers ensure the humane treatment of animals but has continued to refuse to communicate with the CIW in order to establish guidelines for ensuring the humane treatment of the farmworkers who supply their tomatoes.

The CIW is asking Taco Bell to open dialogue with the farmworkers, increase their wages, and work with them to establish standards for wages and working conditions that would be required of all tomato suppliers.

"Such standards would necessarily require respect for pickers' fundamental labor rights, including the right to a living wage and overtime, and the right to organize without fear of retaliation," according to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers website.

Student Solidarity and Resistance

During a presentation by the CIW on the UT campus, members said the students were also being manipulated by Taco Bell and asked for help in their campaign.

"We're the cruelest example of the exploitation caused by this corporation," said Gerardo Reyes, member of CIW. "But at the same time you are students, and you're being exploited as well. It's not the same kind of exploitation, but its exploitation of your minds. Our idea is not to make you feel bad about our situation ... but what we want to do is create strong alliances between young people who are exploited themselves and our workers."

Sean Sellers, member of the Campus Greens, agreed that students are manipulated by Taco Bell and other large corporations. "We're being targeted by media images," Sellers said. "We're being told we have to consume this image-laden type of food."

Students have joined in solidarity with the farmworkers in boycotting Taco Bell and calling for its removal from the Texas Union on campus.

Lucas Benetiz, member of the CIW, said removing Taco Bell from the UT campus would especially affect Taco Bell's sales because of the University's size. "It would be like one more hit in another round against Taco Bell," Benetiz said. "It would be a huge loss for Taco Bell, and they wouldn't be able to recuperate easily."

The demonstrations on October 8 marked the escalation of this campaign, including the introduction of a resolution to Student Government.

A resolution was presented to Student Government but was promptly voted down. During the presentation, one sponsor of the bill spoke briefly and was followed by another representative who presented new evidence he cited as against the resolution.

Brent Purdue, an author of the resolution and SG representative, said the process for voting on the bill was undemocratic. He said the authors of the bill were not made aware of the new evidence or the opposition to the bill before the meeting. He also said there was an unprecedented move by the President of SG, Brian Haley.

"Brian Haley usually doesn't speak on issues, he usually lets the assembly decide, but for some reason or another he decided to rail on us," Perdue said. "He abused the process by engaging us with a debate during the question and answer period and he took facts out of context to justify his point."

After the new evidence was presented, the bill was promptly called to a vote with no debate from the authors or sponsors of the bill. Perdue said he was disappointed with the assembly's response to the bill.

"When I was up there on the mic, I was noticing a lot of representatives working on papers, picking their fingernails, chatting with each other," Perdue said. "And then when the voting came up, they knew what they were voting already."

Sellers, also an author of the resolution, said he, too, was disappointed by the process and the results, but that students plan to present the resolution again and to continue with the boycott.

"The campaign is broader and deeper than just a SG resolution," Sellers said. "Even if that gets stalled, that is not going to pacify us."

Students plan to flyer daily to raise consciousness about the conditions of migrant farmworkers and the boycott. They also plan on meeting with the Union Board to air their concerns about Taco Bell's presence on campus.

The Union has a contract with Aramark Campus Services, which in turn has contracts with the businesses operating in the Union. The Union's contract with Aramark expires in May 2005.

On October 28, three students met with Scott Parry, District Manager of the Southwest Region of Aramark Campus Services and Henry Jackson, Aramark's director of dining services at the University.

Sellers met with the Aramark representatives and said they seemed receptive to student concerns, although they weren't willing to make any early concessions.

He believed student efforts would still require a "full-blown" campaign.

Jackson said the Aramark representatives met with students to see what they had to say about the boycott and that Aramark would take student concerns into account.

"I'm a little cynical just because it's more or less their job to placate students," Sellers said. "There were a few points when they were trying to divert our focus, but we held our course. We said, 'We're just beginning to get organized. We've done with our research. We just wanted to see where you stand on this.'"

Brian Payne, member of the Student/Farmworker Alliance, said students have the ability to influence decisions made by the administrations of their universities

"Administrations often don't want to show that students have power and students have influence on their campus," Payne said. "Students have the voice on their campus. We're the ones who pay tuition. We should be able to decide if the University supports sweatshops or possibly even slavery."

Broadening Efforts

Students are working to raise consciousness about the boycott and the farmworkers' situation, as well as issues of corporate globalization and privatization of universities.

The CIW was brought to campus by Accion Zapatista, the Campus Greens and Resist FTAA! as part of a week of events aimed at raising awareness about issues of corporate globalization, especially the upcoming meeting of the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Charles McPhedran, an exchange student from Sydney, Australia, said another problem with the Taco Bell in the Union is the larger movement to privatize universities worldwide. The Union was privatized in 1995, despite widespread student protest. "It's time for the students to take back the Union, which should rightfully be theirs in the first place," said McPhedran.

Maggie Stubbs, a University student, said she will be working to inform people about the atrocities facing migrant farmworkers in the United States and the Taco Bell boycott.

"It's mentioning it to my friends," Stubbs said. "A lot of my friends have really good hearts, they just don't take the time out of their day. If they choose not to change their consumer habits, than I won't have lost anything - just breath."

Lucas Benetiz, member of the CIW, said students are joining a national movement for civil and human rights.

"Now is our opportunity to be able to bring the agricultural industry to the 21st century and complete what our founding fathers promised - democracy and human rights for everyone," Benetiz said. "We believe in those words that founded this country. We have to make those words a reality and the only way we're going to do it is working together, walking together and struggling together."

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Reinlie, Lauren Sage. "Students Join Farmworkers to Boot the Bell at UT". November 2003. Issue. Vol. 1. No. 3. Pages 8-9, 15. http://www.utwatch.org/archives/issue/issue_1_3.pdf