Church leaders call for Christians to fast and pray on Fridays during Lent for a just resolution of the Taco Bell boycott   [2-15-05]

On Saturday, March 12th, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) will hold a peaceful mass rally in front of Yum Brand's headquarters in Louisville, KY as a part of the CIW's annual Taco Bell Truth Tour. With your help we can bring thousands of people from Louisville and across the nation to witness and send a strong message to the company that Presbyterians are serious about their commitment to fair food and to ending exploitation in the fields. Details are on www.pcusa.org/boycott. Below is the schedule in brief:

Feb 28: Taco Bell Truth Tour leaves Immokalee, FL
Two buses of workers will visit cities throughout the south and midwest

March 6 - 12: Week of Action in Louisville, KY
Educational, worship, and protest activities including a Global Justice conference

March 12th: Peaceful mass rally at Yum Brands Headquarters, Louisville, KY
Join the farmworkers, nationally recognized human rights speakers, religious leaders, musicians and actor Martin Sheen. Bring your family and join people of faith, students and workers for as we call on Yum Brands to end sweatshops in the fields.

The farmworkers need our help to make this the biggest rally ever. Last year's protest brought top executives at Yum to the table. As they judge the rally this year they will be asking if their customers really care or if they can continue with business as usual. Friends, it is not a matter of whether we will win, it is a matter of when. This is history in the making and we, as Presbyterians, are at the heart of it. Will this be the year Yum decides to use its power to end the exploitation? It's really up to us.

We all have many responsibilities but there are moments in our lives when an opportunity comes to make a significant contribution through our presence and our witness. This is one of them. It may require reprioritization or speaking out in difficult circumstances or making a sacrificial effort but as, Dr. King reminds us "the ultimate measure of a person is not where s/he stands in moments of convenience but where s/he stands in moments of challenge, moments of great crisis and controversy." So I write to you with urgency and sincerity to ask for your commitment to do all you can to make March 12th at Yum Brands the biggest, most intergenerational, most energetic peaceful protest yet. And if the Taco Bell Truth Tour is coming to your neighborhood -- support the workers! Offer hospitality and educational opportunities.

All of the information on the CIW''s Taco Bell Truth Tour may be found at www.pcusa.org/boycott including the cities in which the Truth Tour stops, the plans for the Global Justice Conference on March 11th, and some of the initial educational and protest plans. For questions or ideas contact boycott@pcusa.org

Together, may we be the change we wish to see in the world!

Sincerely,
Noelle
The Rev. Noelle Damico, Coordinator
Taco Bell Boycott, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)


To learn more about the Taco Bell Boycott, please
visit http://www.pcusa.org/boycott/ or contact:
The Rev. Noelle Damico, Coordinator
Taco Bell Boycott, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
boycott@pcusa.org; Tel. 631-751-7076

[1-14-05]

[Information in this update comes from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. For more information, visit www.ciw-online.org. ]

News from Boise State University and Portland State University

"The purpose of a university is to open up debate and create discourse about the issues of the day... If Boise State becomes known as a university where corporate contributions from anyone with a big checkbook can buy complicity and silence, then I as a faculty member and a citizen have... failed in my job..."

So wrote BSU faculty member Robert McCarl in a compelling opinion piece published in the university's independent student newspaper, "The Arbiter," earlier this week. He was writing in response to the position taken by BSU President Bob Kustra regarding the call by student and faculty there to end BSU's contract with Taco Bell for the naming rights to the university's basketball arena. President Kustra has stated, among other things, that protests over the Taco Bell issue have harmed the university.

You can read the full text of Professor McCarl's opinion.

Also from the Boot the Bell campaign, read how students at Portland State University are using creative new tactics to win the support of faculty and staff at their university for the student-led campaign to remove Taco Bell from the PSU campus.

New endorsements for the Taco Bell Boycott

More great news from the endorsement front... American poet, essayist, novelist, philosopher, and Kentucky farmer Wendell Berry has endorsed the boycott! Mr. Berry, who has been called "America's most eloquent and prolific defender of traditional rural life and small-scale farming," is a highly respected voice in the world of agriculture, family farmers, and rural community organizing. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers leaders say the Coalition is tremendously honored to have him with them in this struggle.

And, in the latest of a growing list of high-profile artists, authors, and organizations nationwide, Bonnie Raitt -- the nine-time Grammy winner and world-renowned social activist -- has endorsed the Taco Bell boycott. Ms. Raitt, a member of the Rock and Roll Music Hall of Fame since 2000, has sold more than 15 million albums over the course of her distinguished music career, during which she has played with a virtual Who's Who of Blues and Rock greats.

She is equally well known for her unflagging commitment to social justice. She has spoken out and played benefits for a wide array of causes over the years, from participating in the Sun City anti-apartheid project to playing the historic 1980 No Nukes concerts at Madison Square Garden, co-founding MUSE (Musicians United for Safe Energy), and working for environmental protection and the rights of women and Native Americans.

[7-21-04]

The information in this update comes from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

July 20, 2004

Mother Jones features CIW --

Coalition of Immokalee Workers leader Lucas Benitez is featured as this month's "Hellraiser" in Mother Jones magazine in an article entitled "Power to the Pickers." Buy your own issue on newsstands or click here to read the article.

Here's an excerpt:

"'Picking is dignified, honest work that deserves to be treated as such. This community of workers is...clearing the path for those who will come behind us. It's not something that can wait for others. It has to come from us, who've worked in the fields.'"

Taco Bell Attempts Payoff --

In its latest effort to counter the growing support for the boycott, Taco Bell sent an unsolicited check to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, which the Coalition promptly returned. Taco Bell claims that the check, in the amount of $110,000, represents one penny per pound of tomatoes that Taco Bell buys from Florida.

Clearly, Taco Bell is feeling the pressure of the nationwide boycott. But instead of working to eliminate human rights abuses in its supply chain and demanding modern-day labor practices from its suppliers, Taco Bell has decided to fund a public relations effort designed to mislead the press and the public.

Taco Bell first suggested "giving" this check many weeks ago, at a meeting that both sides agreed to keep confidential. Both the Coalition and the Presbyterian Church (USA) explained at the meeting that Taco Bell's suppliers must compensate the workers through changing the wages paid to the workers, not by an arbitrary gift of funds. But this fact isn't important to Taco Bell. It picked an amount out of thin air and sent a check in that amount to the Coalition, knowing that the money does not compensate the workers justly nor does it represent a promise to do so.

Socially responsible business practices demand that multi-billion dollar companies like Taco Bell's parent company Yum establish direct and transparent relationships with their suppliers so that labor conditions in their supply chain can be monitored and held to modern-day standards demanded by their consumers.

Read an editorial in the June 23, 2004 edition of the Palm Beach Post entitled "Send Reform, Not Payoff!"