Sweet Victory: Yo Quiero Justice!

Sweet Victory: Yo Quiero Justice!

On Tuesday, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers scored aprecedent-setting victory for America’s beleaguered farm workers.

After three years of a CIW-led boycott against Taco Bell, Yum Brands Inc.–the world’s largest fast-food corporation and the chain’s parent company–agreed to improve working conditions of the Florida tomato pickers and increase their wages by paying an extra penny per pound oftomatoes picked.

The average American farm worker lives far below the poverty line,(barely) subsisting on $7,500 a year. Currently, the market price for tomatoes hovers around 32 cents per barrel, roughly the same amount it stood at thirty years ago. For the tomato pickers, the penny-per-pound increase provides a significant income boost. For America’s farm workers, CIW’s victory is a groundbreaking step towards a more socially responsible fast-food industry.

Facebook
Twitter
Email
Flipboard
Pocket

On Tuesday, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers scored aprecedent-setting victory for America’s beleaguered farm workers.

After three years of a CIW-led boycott against Taco Bell, Yum Brands Inc.–the world’s largest fast-food corporation and the chain’s parent company–agreed to improve working conditions of the Florida tomato pickers and increase their wages by paying an extra penny per pound oftomatoes picked.

The average American farm worker lives far below the poverty line,(barely) subsisting on $7,500 a year. Currently, the market price for tomatoes hovers around 32 cents per barrel, roughly the same amount it stood at thirty years ago. For the tomato pickers, the penny-per-pound increase provides a significant income boost. For America’s farm workers, CIW’s victory is a groundbreaking step towards a more socially responsible fast-food industry.

Taco Bell’s concession comes on the heels of CIW’s protest outside the Yum corporate headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky on Saturday. The protest was the culmination of CIW’s massive “Taco Bell Truth Tour,” which drummed up support for the boycott across the country. The National Council of Churches, representing 50 million Christians, and prominent figures such as Jimmy Carter strongly backed the movement. Campus activists also provided a major boost: students at over 300 colleges and universities participated in the boycott, and students at twenty-one schools even had Taco Bell removed or barred from their campuses.

“This is an important victory for farm workers, one that establishes a new standard of social responsibility for the fast-food industry and makes an immediate material change in the lives of worker,” said Lucas Benitez, co-president of the CIW. “This sends a clear challenge to other industry leaders.”

We also want to hear from you. Please let us know if you have a sweet victory you think we should cover by emailing to: [email protected].

Co-written by Sam Graham-Felsen, a freelance journalist, documentary filmmaker, and blogger (www.boldprint.net) living in Brooklyn.

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

Ad Policy
x