index of 2005 conference papers

The Global Food Chain:
Farmworkers and Fast Food

Stacy Tessier
University of South Florida

It is May 1, 2001. I pull into a Taco Bell on Colonial Drive in Orlando, Florida. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) decided that today is the day to kick off the nation-wide boycott of Taco Bell to protest the wages of the workers that pick the majority of the tomatoes for the corporation. I have been preparing for this for weeks by learning radical cheers and educating myself about the situation of the farmworkers. I am not prepared for how I feel when the Immokalee workers themselves arrive at the fast-food restaurant. This is my first time at a protest with the people that are actually being affected by unfair labor practices. “One penny more!” The spirit that the farmworkers demonstrated was enough to make me commit to active involvement in the boycott.

It is March 1, 2003. I am on the fifth day of a hunger strike outside of Taco Bell headquarters in Irvine, California. For the past week, both farmworkers and allies have been spending the day marching along the sidewalk and sleeping both on the sidewalk and at a local church, refusing food as a protest against the meager wages the farmworkers receive for picking tomatoes. Today is the big rally, so the protesters spill onto the street in front of a small portable stage. The stage is graced by speakers, including farmworkers, hunger-strikers, church and community leaders and activists, authors and other writers, and musicians. There is street theatre, music, dancing, and chanting. “I’d rather starve than eat Taco Bell!” But the Taco Bell representatives stay inside of the tall mirrored building.

It is March 14, 2005. I am checking e-mail for updates about the latest Truth tour from my home in Spring Hill, Florida. I have not been able to check e-mail for almost a week. I learn that the boycott is now over, that on March 8 th Taco Bell agreed to a meeting with the farmworkers. I feel shocked, elated, but also guilty that I was unable to attend this recent Truth tour and the one before it. I know the victory is not mine and belongs to the farmworkers, but a small part of me wanted to be there in support.

I am writing this paper not only to share my experiences as an ally with the CIW during this boycott, but to explore the relationship of fast-food restaurants and globalization. I am also looking at the way gender shapes the experiences of both farmworkers and consumers. I rely on my own observations and experiences over the past four years of the Taco Bell boycott, including previous interviews conducted with members of the CIW, and all words are mine unless otherwise noted.

The food chain once referred to who was eating whom, the order of life forms (both plant and animal) along a scientifically-determined scale. Because of globalization, the food chain can now be thought of as how food gets from the field to the dinner plate, a journey that often involves border crossings at different levels. In the fast-food industry in the United States, produce is usually picked by migrant farmworkers receiving low wages under poor working conditions. Farmworkers, once rendered invisible in this global food chain, are making their voices heard for better working conditions, including better pay. It is only by self-organizing that changes in labor practices, in both the field and within the fast-food industry, can be accomplished.

About the CIW

The CIW is a community-based worker organization with largely Latino, Haitian, and Mayan Indian immigrant members who work seasonally in low-wage jobs throughout Florida.1 The membership changes from season to season as workers move between their home country and the United States and as they follow the crops (such as tomatoes in Florida during the winter, watermelons further north in the summer). The CIW began organizing in 1993 and began its campaign for living wages for farmworkers in 1997, with the Taco Bell boycott being an extension of that campaign. Within the CIW, there are no formal leadership positions; instead, all of the members are all leaders.

The mission of the CIW, according to the CIW website:

We strive to build our strength as a community on a basis of reflection and analysis, constant attention to coalition building across ethnic divisions, and an ongoing investment in leadership development to help our members continually develop their skills in community education and organization. From this basis we fight for, among other things: a fair wage for the work we do, more respect on the part of our bosses and the industries where we work, better and cheaper housing, stronger laws and stronger enforcement against those who would violate workers' rights, the right to organize on our jobs without fear of retaliation, and an end to indentured servitude in the fields.

The Taco Bell campaign has earned the CIW national recognition, which contributes to achievement of their goals.

The work in the fields can be compared to factories across the world that rely on cheap labor to promote profits. The factories and the fields share similar working conditions, such as long work days (usually from sun-up to sun-down), extended workweeks (six or seven days a week), overtime work (often unpaid), and a rigid division of labor between the managers and the laborers. Because many of the farmworkers in Immokalee are not United States citizens, they are not protected by the federal or local labor laws, including the right to unionize. The workforce in Immokalee is young, with most farmworkers between the ages of 15 and 25. Many of the farmworkers come to the United States for the wages that they will send home to families. Because of globalization, jobs back home are hard to come by. In the United States, corporate agriculture always needs hands in the field, and it is usually migrant workers that fulfill that need.

I came to be involved with the CIW in the spring of 2001. I belonged to a collective in Orlando, the Stone Soup Collective. Many of the members of the collective had been allies to the CIW for years and held information workshops about the working conditions in Immokalee. I attended several workshops, including training workshops for in-store demonstrations. I didn’t meet anyone from the CIW until the kick-off rally on May Day. In the four years following that rally, I have committed myself to ally work, including organizing protests (many in conjunction with national days of action), arranging for CIW members to come speak at the University of South Florida (USF) in the form of teach-ins and rallies, presenting guest lectures in various Women’s Studies and Political Science classes at USF, attending meetings in Immokalee, and joining the 2003 Taco Bell Truth Tour. Many times I worked directly with farmworkers, and other times I worked with fellow students and community activists.

Gender, Farmwork, and Food

The majority of the farmworkers in the CIW are men. In many of the home countries of the farmworkers, it is the men (fathers and sometimes sons/brothers) that are the primary wage-earners of the family. When the men move elsewhere for work, the women are left home to be responsible for childcare and other household duties. However, women (usually daughters/sisters) also come to the United States for work and send money home to their parents or siblings. When whole families do come to the United States for work, whether one or both parents work in the fields, women are still responsible for childcare and keeping up the household. Women are expected to do the same work in the fields as the men; therefore they are encouraged to participate in the CIW as equally as men.

Both in the United States and in many parts of the world, women are responsible for food purchases and for preparing food. Women have an immense power to speak with their pocketbooks when it comes to food. It is important for everyone to understand where their food comes from, but the involvement of women is vital to the success of any food boycott, fast-food or otherwise. As people become more aware of the origin of food, they become more aware of the conditions that bring that food to the market. As consumers, knowledge becomes important for deciding to buy this item or that item, or deciding to eat at this restaurant or that restaurant.

The Taco Bell Boycott and the Future

The Taco Bell boycott is one example of how farmworkers fight against the forces of globalization. The boycott began when Taco Bell refused to take part in a dialogue with the workers and the packing company, 6-L, to discuss a wage increase of one penny per pound for the farmworkers, who were making 40-50 cents per 32-pound bushel of tomatoes (which translated into about $7500 annually). To meet that wage increase, according to the CIW website, Taco Bell would only have to raise the price of one product, the chalupa, by one quarter of a penny. About 200 people participated in the national boycott kickoff in Orlando. The campaign spread primarily through word-of-mouth, especially through students, religious groups, and labor organizations. The CIW organized several annual national tours, known as Truth Tours, to bring the campaign across the country. The tours lead not only to Irvine, California, but to Louisville, Kentucky, the home of Taco Bell’s parent corporation Yum! Brands. The 2003 tour included a 10-day hunger strike that included about 75 participants for all or some of those days. The campaign found support from notable activists, authors, musicians, and even former president Jimmy Carter.2 Another spin-off campaign, Boot the Bell, spread across college and high school campuses to either prevent Taco Bells from being built on campus or closing Taco Bells that were already in existence.

In March 2005, Taco Bell finally agreed to meet the CIW’s demands to improve wages and working conditions for the Florida tomato pickers of their suppliers. The agreement between the CIW and Yum! Brands is precedent setting through the establishment of the first direct payment to farmworkers by a fast-food industry leader, the first enforceable Code of Conduct for fast-food industry agricultural suppliers, a commitment to workers human rights, and transparency of Florida tomato purchases.3 According to the CIW website:

With this agreement, farmworkers from one of the country’s poorest towns took on a corporate giant larger than McDonald’s and won. In an era where workers are losing more other than winning, where unionization rates and company-paid benefits … are dropping and poverty is rising – dirt-poor workers from Immokalee organized an aggressive national campaign of creative actions and mass mobilizations that never wavered, grew stronger with the commitment of youth, religious, and union allies, and finally convinced the world’s largest company to change the way it does business forever.

Although the victory is not mine, I know I contributed to the campaign and I am proud to have stood with the farmworkers throughout the campaign. However, I realize that the work is not over.

With the victory against Taco Bell/Yum! Brands, the CIW is now looking to other fast-food restaurants. Farmworkers and allies are encouraging fast-food corporations such as McDonald’s, Subway, and Burger King to follow Taco Bell in treatment of the farmworkers that supply their food.4 Cathy Albisa, the Executive Director of the National Social and Economic Rights Initiative issued a statement calling upon the rest of the food industry to follow Taco Bell’s example “and recognize their role in protecting the fundamental human rights to fair wages, decent conditions, participation in decision-making, and freedom from forced labor and slavery.”5 Another boycott is not underway at this time, but a letter-writing campaign is in progress. The victory has demonstrated that change is possible.

Conclusion

The global food chain involves workers crossing international borders for work and food crossing both national and international borders to reach the marketplace. The fast-food industry relies on the produce picked by underpaid farmworkers to keep their own prices low.

Through my involvement with the boycott, I have changed the way I think about consumption. I have become more aware of where the products that I buy come from and the labor that goes into producing those products. I have seen firsthand the impact of globalization on myself and on others. It doesn’t matter in what country a person resides, the negative impact of globalization affects whole populations.

I will continue to be an ally for farmworkers. If another national boycott arises, I plan to be on the streets with the farmworkers. I know that I cannot stop the forces of globalization, but I know that I can take small steps to influence how those forces affect myself and others.

NOTES

1 The information about the CIW, including the goals, comes from the CIW website, www.ciw-online.org

2 To see a statement of support from President Jimmy Carter, please see the CIW website.

3 This information comes from the CIW website.

4 This information is from the CIW website.

5 The full statement can be found on the CIW website

index of 2005 conference papers