November 23, 2004
by Evan Silverstein

LOUISVILLE - A group of Florida farmworkers and their supporters, including Presbyterians and other people of faith, will kick-off the 2005 "Taco Bell Truth Tour" March 7.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a Florida-based group that represents farmworkers who pick tomatoes that Taco Bell uses in its products, is sponsoring the event, which concludes March 19.

The CIW launched a national consumer boycott of Taco Bell in April 2001, demanding the fast-food giant and parent Yum! Brands Inc., press its tomato suppliers to improve wages and working conditions. They also want Taco Bell to develop and monitor a code of conduct for growers and packers.

"The farmworkers are asking Yum! Brands to eliminate exploitation in its supply chain and work positively to ensure the human rights of workers that pick tomatoes for their suppliers," said the Rev. Noelle Damico, a United Church of Christ minister who is the national boycott coordinator for the Presbyterian Church (USA).

The PC(USA)'s 214th General Assembly in 2002 endorsed the national boycott of Taco Bell and called for good-faith dialogue between its tomato supplier and representatives of the coalition.

Other religious bodies joining the PC(USA) in endorsing the boycott are the United Methodist Church, United Church of Christ, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers), the National Council of Churches, and the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee.

The 13-day tour, the fourth of its kinds, will focus on the South and Midwest with peaceful demonstrations outside Taco Bell restaurants and other programs aimed at raising awareness of conditions in the Florida fields where tomatoes are picked for the Mexican-style restaurant chain.

Stops are planned in Atlanta, Memphis, Chicago, St. Louis, and Indianapolis, March 7-12, in route to Louisville, home of Taco Bell's parent company, Yum! Brands, Inc.

"Some of the things that we will be doing include helping people to understand the links between how it is that Yum! Brands and Taco Bell have a hand in the poor wages and poor working conditions that farmworkers receive and what they can do about it," said Julia Perkins, a CIW staffer who is helping plan the Truth Tour.

The farmworkers, who will travel by bus, will sponsor a week of educational events and actions in Louisville, March 13-19, concluding the tour with a rally outside Yum! headquarters the final day.

Though specific details and itineraries are still being worked out, the event should include similar highlights as in the past, Perkins said.

"The stops in each city will include time to spend with the community there, most likely marches, protests at local Taco Bells, and the open community forums where the farm workers have an opportunity to tell their stories," she said.

More than 100 farmworkers are expected to take part in the nearly two weeks of events, flanked by a growing number of church members, student activists, farmers, labor groups and community leaders, according to organizers.

Also scheduled for 2005 Truth Tour is formation of a human chain stretching from Yum! Brands' offices to nearby Unified Foodservice Purchasing Co-op (UFPC), which manages the supply chain for all five of Yum! Brands' chains: Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC, Long John Silvers, and A&W Restaurants.

"We want to help people understand the role of organizations like the UFPC, which is Yum! Brands' affiliate that does the volume buying," Perkins said. "Keeping the prices that they pay for products artificially low keeps the farm workers' wages artificially low. At the same time they have the mechanism in that to want to work for better conditions for farmworkers."

Boycott supporters are planning to maintain a round-the-clock presence outside Yum! headquarters during the event, Perkins said, though some will take part in a daylong "reverse reality" bus tour through the neighborhoods of Yum! Brands executives.

"The Taco Bell Boycott is an exercise of our stewardship over God's creation," Damico said. "Through our consumer power we are bearing witness to and encouraging business practices that are more in line with the well-being God intends for all people."

The coalition wants Taco Bell and its parent to urge its distributors to give the farm workers a one-cent-per-pound raise.

The pickers currently earn 40 to 45 cents per 32-pound bucket, a rate that hasn't changed appreciably in more than 20 years. Farmworkers say they must pick two-tons of tomatoes to earn $50. Meanwhile, the average retail price of tomatoes has risen from 67 cents per pound in 1980 to $1.32 in 2002, according to U.S. government figures.

With revenues of more than $24 billion in 2003, Yum! Brands is the largest restaurant company in the world, and as such wields tremendous influence in the corporate food industry, organizers said.

In the past, Taco Bell has said it does not have the ability to negotiate directly with workers, who work for producers.

For the past three years, the farmworkers from Immokalee, FL, and their allies have crossed the country, carrying what they claim is the truth about the sweatshop-like conditions behind the tomatoes in Taco Bell's products to communities from Tallahassee to San Francisco.

Each year, the CIW's truth tours have culminated in large actions - including a 10-day hunger strike in 2003 and a 44-mile march in 2004 - outside of Taco Bell global headquarters in Irvine, CA.

The 2004 Taco Bell Truth Tour started with more than 150 farmworkers and supporters marching eight miles through Louisville, from the PC(USA)'s national offices to Yum! headquarters.

"The Presbyterian Church (USA), by virtue of having its national offices in Louisville, is in a unique position to encourage our neighbor Yum! Brands, to use its power to help bring about real and lasting change for the farmworkers that are at the heart of its operation," Damico said.

Organizers say support for the boycott is expanding at a rapid pace across the country, particularly on college campuses, where the Student/Farmworker Alliance's "Boot the Bell" campaign has grown rapidly.

Most recently, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, IN, have moved to end their relationships with Taco Bell in response to student support for the boycott.

The institutions joined 18 other schools in a growing wave of student-led activism, demanding that Taco Bell clean up human rights abuses in its supply chain if it is to do business on their campuses.

For more information about the boycott and the 2005 Taco Bell Truth Tour, visit the Web sites of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, or the PC(USA).

Presbyterian News Service