Fair Food Solidarity Tour
The United Workers is a human rights organization in Baltimore, Maryland that I work with. The low-wage worker leaders of the organization are organizing all 1,000 workers – across sectors and employers – at Baltimore’s touristy Inner Harbor. Restaurant workers make up the vast majority of the workforce there. This week the United Workers is embarking on a tour from Baltimore to Philadelphia to Immokalee Florida in solitary with the farm workers leading the way for justice in fields. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) organizes and is led by Florida’s farm workers, many working in slave-like conditions (with some being forced into actual slavery). The CIW is currently ramping up pressure on the Publix chain of grocery for the human rights abuses of their suppliers. In Philadelphia the United Workers and CIW worked closely with the Media Mobilizing Project, a human rights, media and leadership development organization and network.
The Fair Food Solidarity Tour brings together the issues facing low-wage workers throughout the United States. Restaurant workers and other service workers in Baltimore are fighting with the workers in Florida’s fields. Protests along the tour include demands for farm worker justice at Aramark’s headquarters, delegations to grocery store Giant, protests against Comcast and media consolidation in Philadelphia, a protest at Philly Live – a development controlled by Cordish, one of the Inner Harbor’s developers, and protests coming up in the tour aimed at Publix. What connects all these protests and actions, issues and demands, are the same human rights values and the similar plights of low-wage workers everywhere. By connecting causes and standing in solidarity workers gain strength, share lessons learned, and build power for just purpose together.
Here’s an update from day 1 of the tour, from the United Workers:
After sharing a meal, we all came together to learn more about the Coalition of Immokalee and their struggle for farmworker dignity. Armando Tema, United Workers leader and poverty scholar, led us in a discussion where we talked about the movement the CIW is building to expose the human rights crisis taking place in Florida’s fields, involving in some extreme cases, modern day slavery. We related this to the Underground Railroad and the movement built by abolitionists to end an institution of slavery. We talked about what would be needed from each of us to build the Underground Railroad to Freedom from Poverty. Together in a unity circle, we each held a candle. One by one as we voiced how we would strengthen this movement, Armando lit our candles until we created a ring of light and solidarity. With the room lit with candles, we broke out into “This Little Light of Mine.”
Here’s a day 2 and day 3 update, from the United Workers:
Day two of the Fair Food Solidarity Tour was a Philadelphia double-hitter with a rally at Aramark Headquarters and a theatrical action at Cordish’s planned development, Philly Live! Once we were done taking to the streets, we took to the Media Mobilizing Project office for an incredible dinner, discussion and cultural night.
A delegation of representatives from the CIW, Student/Farmworker Aliance, Just Harvest and the United Workers made way for Giant Food Headquarters in Landover, MD. Our mission was to deliver a letter to Harriet Hentges, Vice President for Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability. We were there as allies to urge Giant to work with the CIW to ensure that they are not complicit in the continuation of sweatshop conditions of farmworkers who pick the tomatoes that are in their supermarkets. But Ms. Hentges was away at Ahold Headuarters, Giant’s parent company according to her assistant who took the letter and message in her place.
Here’s an update from MMP’s Labour Blog, from protests and actions in Philadelphia:
What is the cost of tomatoes? For the women and men who work the fields of Immokalee, Florida the cost too often is a modern day slavery. Since the days of slavery in this country farm workers and domestic work have gone as the two industries unprotected by labor laws. But also in Immokalee Florida, the farmworkers who pick the majority of tomatoes we eat in our country have been on the move, one corporate purchaser after another, demanding an end to the slavery in the fields and a better life through a higher wage. From Taco Bell, to Burger King, to McDonalds, and Whole Foods the Coalition of Immokalee Workers have been organizing and winning victory towards the end of modern day slavery in the fields.
