by James Parks, Mar 13, 2008
The slave trade in the United States was banned 200 years ago, but in the tomato fields of south Florida, modern-day slavery still thrives.
Farm workers who pick tomatoes for the fast-food industry are among this country’s most exploited workers. They sometimes are held against their will, beaten and forced to work for little or no pay. Thousands more are trying to survive with poverty wages, no overtime pay, no sick leave and no freedom to join unions for a better life.
Today, many of those workers joined with members of Congress and union and human rights leaders to kick off a new abolitionist movement to eliminate modern-day slavery in America’s produce fields.
The workers are reaching out to 1 million people to sign a petition demanding that Burger King and food industry leaders work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to improve the wages and conditions for the workers who pick tomatoes, and join an industrywide effort to eliminate slavery and human rights abuses from Florida’s fields.
Last April, the CIW won a groundbreaking agreement with McDonald’s, the world’s largest restaurant chain. The fast-food giant agreed to pay a penny more per pound to workers harvesting tomatoes, which means the workers get 72 cents to 77 cents for every 32-pound bucket of tomatoes they pick, up from 40 cents to 45 cents.
But Burger King, the world’s second-largest hamburger chain, has rejected working with the CIW to improve farm workers’ wages and conditions. Instead, it has joined with extreme conservatives and the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange to fight the agreements. In fact, to discourage the growers from paying a mere penny more per pound, the growers exchange has threatened to impose a $100,000 fine on any grower that participates in the agreements.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who signed the petition, told a Capitol Hill rally to launch the campaign:
I come here with a message for every woman and man who picks tomatoes: You are not alone. We know about your courage, (and) we’re proud of you for standing up for what’s right. Your struggle is our struggle. Your dream is our dream. Your goal is our goal. And we’re going to be right beside you until the morning arrives when you win what you deserve, when you have better pay and decent conditions, when you and your hard work are respected and honored, when justice is finally done!
Members of Congress, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio ) and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), also signed the petition. You can sign the petition by clicking here.
In January, federal officials in south Florida arrested six people, charging them with conspiring to make money off workers from Mexico and Guatemala, forging documents and committing identity theft. The six are connected to a business operation in Immokalee, Fla., allegedly created to hold workers in involuntary servitude and peonage.
Lucas Benitez, a member of the CIW and winner of the 2003 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, told the crowd:
In the tradition of the abolitionist movement, where legislators, consumers and workers joining to demand sugar free from the scourge of slavery helped bring an end to the slave trade, this petition marks the strength of a growing alliance in the U.S. demanding fair food and an end to slavery in its modern-day form. Both in Washington today and across the nation, the struggle against the existence of humiliating and often brutal forms of forced labor in America’s produce fields may no longer be ignored.
Monika Kalra Varma, director of Robert F. Kennedy Center, added:
When members of Congress passed the Slave Trade Act of 1808, certainly none would have believed 200 years later that slavery would still exist in the United States of America. Generations later, it is only right that we stand in front of the Capitol, a building built with the help of slave labor, with members of Congress, farm workers and their supporters to acknowledge our shared obligations to work to end slavery and rights abuses in this country and to demand the mass consumers of Florida’s produce, like Burger King, partner with workers to realize these goals.
More articles at http://blog.aflcio.org/
Leave Your Comments