[2-26-05]

Released by the Rev. Noelle Damico, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 631-371-9877, February 23, 2005.

Statement from Rick Ufford Chase, the Moderator of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

On the preparation for and the occasion of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers' Taco Bell Truth Tour and peaceful, mass rally at Yum Brands in Louisville, KY, March 12, 2005

The church at its best dares to ask of the present order: whose interests are being served and whose interests are being ignored. "God alone is to be obeyed. Christians are first to ask of the economic system not whether it is most efficient or productive of economic goods, as important as that is, but how it reflects the purpose of God for creation" (Christian Faith and Economic Justice, PC(USA), 1984, 29.081).

When I was in Immokalee, Florida in early October, I met a young man, no more than seventeen or eighteen years old, who had just arrived from Mexico the day before. He told me that he was from southern Mexico, and that he had come to join his cousins in Immokalee to find work and send money home to help his parents keep his younger siblings in school. He had traveled north across Mexico on his own, then followed a smuggler on a five day hike across the Sonoran desert in my part of the world - southwestern Arizona. My throat tightened as he told of hiking for several days and then coming across a water station in the desert - two blue fifty-five gallon drums with a blue flag put there by my colleagues in ministry from Tucson.

I met him in the small, 12 by 14 foot cinderblock room that he would share with five other men and for which they were paying $565 per month. He intended to begin looking for work the next morning. His cousins knew, even if he didn't, what awaited him. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers is inspired and led by migrant farmworkers just like those young man who know that they can't make ends meet on the sub-minimum wage with no benefits that they find in Florida. The farmworkers each have their own story. Some are documented, others undocumented; some are permanent residents, others are citizens or political refugees who have been granted asylum. But they face the same reality. Each day these men and women search for work picking tomatoes that pays 40 cents for every 32 pound bucket; a rate unchanged for twenty five years.

There are some things that cannot be disputed. The migrants from Mexico, Guatemala, and Haiti who are picking tomatoes in central Florida work hard. They are dependable, and much of our agricultural production in that part of the country depends on them. The workers are asking Yum Brands, the parent company of Taco Bell, to pay its suppliers a penny more per pound of tomatoes and require these growers to pass that along in the form of a per bucket increase for the farmworkers, whose labor everyone in the industry knows is the lynchpin of their business.
There is no more important challenge to the church in our time than building up a global community that reflects the reign of God in the midst of the globalization of our economy and our work force. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) stands with these workers. We support this boycott because we know that this is the difference between survival and starvation for these workers and the families who depend on them.

Jesus calls us to out of the way places like Immokalee, FL, to offer charitable assistance to the farmworkers. We are also called to accompany those same workers to as they address the corporate decision-makers of our time. It has always been the responsibility of the church to insist that businesses like Yum Brands and Taco Bell pay a wage to ensure the well-being of the families and communities who work for them, even as those companies seek to make a profit and provide a service.

The church at its best remembers that we are customers, employees, franchisers, farmworkers, and executives; that we are created for community and that justice is a community concept. All of us are children of God, called to recognize God's image in one another, and commanded to live in ways that promote God's shalom (well-being; just-peace).

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted to support the Taco Bell boycott, called by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) in June of 2002. Our denomination has taken a side in this struggle. We are not neutral. As consumers and as people of faith we support the workers in this effort to convince Yum Brands to end the human rights abuses in its own supply chain now. We lament that the boycott was necessary to draw the attention of the company, but we do not apologize for our participation. For until the world works justly for all as it should, Scripture teaches that God sides with those who are made poor by "business as usual." (Ex 3:7; Ps 146:7; Lk 4:18) We are standing on that firm foundation of scripture.

At the same time we entreat the executive leadership of Yum Brands, as children of God, to work together with the CIW right now; to not defer or delay or deny; but to do. To do what they know is possible and right. We do not presume that changing business practices is easy or cheap or convenient. We trust that Yum Brands' executive leadership is as outraged with the exploitation in the fields as we are. We ask you to show the moral courage required to sit down and work together with the CIW. We ask you to lead your industry to a high ethic and practice within fast-food and agriculture. We cannot end this exploitation without you. Yum Brands, its tomato suppliers, its customers and the CIW - all of us are needed to bring an end to sweatshops in the fields.

As the Moderator of the General Assembly, I join Presbyterians from Louisville and around the country who, with the workers and their supporters, unite in our plea to Yum Brands' leadership, "human rights and fair food now!" I trust that one day soon we will celebrate our partnership with you in beginning a new era in history. May March 12, 2005 be remembered as the day when executives from the largest fast food company in the world decided to join together with farmworkers from Immokalee to inaugurate a new and beneficial age of human rights within business. Can you affirm, with us, that "Another world is possible?"  We pray that you can!