Students protest for Immokalee workers’ rights
December 13, 2009
“J-U-S, J-U-S-T-I-C-E is what we want!” protestors shouted while marching down Monroe Street in front of the Lake Ella Publix. Florida State University’s Center for Participant Education coordinated with Coalition of Immokalee Workers to bring awareness to the farm workers’ plight in Immokalee, Fla.
According to CIW’s Web site, Florida tomato pickers earn 45 cents per 32 lbs on average, which means they have to pick over 4,000 lbs of tomatoes to earn the equivalent for Florida minimum wage for a 10-hour workday.
These workers lack many of the rights given to laborers, like overtime pay. In some severe cases, workers are held against their will to stay on the farm and work for no pay.
According to Coalition of Immokalee Workers' Web site, Florida tomato pickers earn 45 cents per 32 lbs on average.
CIW has been working for 16 years to change the lives of these farm workers and help prevent modern-day slavery. They have marched and protested all over the nation, demanding that major corporations like Taco Bell, McDonalds and Burger King, pay 1 penny more per pound for the tomatoes they purchase.
Corporations work together with the CIW to develop and implement an enforceable, human rights-based code of conduct in their supply chains to reverse decades of inhumane treatment of workers in the agricultural industry.
“Farm worker participation is essential to the CIW agreements because farm workers have their own voice and must be genuine partners in changing the agricultural industry,” said Marc Rodrigues, a staff member of Student/Farmworker Alliance.
These particular corporations have agreed to CIW demands, but the struggle is not over. There are still several corporations all over the nation that have not yet met these demands, including Publix, Wal-Mart and Aramark, the food service provider corporation for FSU’s campus.
“For me, as someone who was a college student not too long ago, I think we have the right and the responsibility to know where the food that is served on our campus comes from, under what conditions it was produced, and what are the social responsibility policies and practices of the corporations,” said Rodrigues in reference to Aramark.
Rodrigues said he hopes that speaking out against these practices will encourage corporations like Aramark to take greater social responsibility.
“Aramark is making lots of money off the tuition and meal plan dollars that students at FSU struggle to pay every semester, and yet there is basically no student input into what the Aramark contract looks like, or on any of the issues I have mentioned,” Rodrigues said. “At the same time, Aramark has been given an opportunity to practice true social responsibility and contribute to ending a real human rights crisis that continues basically unchecked here in Florida, and they’ve dragged their feet to do so.”
Patrick Shepard, a sophomore at FSU and the staff member of CPE who coordinated with CIW, said he thinks these injustices should be brought to light.
“So many students have meal plans, come to campus all the time (and) have no other choice but to eat with them,” said Shepard. “Knowing that you’re forced into this position that you shouldn’t make, that you don’t want to make—that is reason enough for a lot of people to be upset, and they should be upset. As students we have a lot of power to deal with these kinds of things.”
Rodrigues said he feels it is important for students to take control over these issues.
“I think it makes sense for us to get together in an alliance with farm workers and work together to make sure these corporations and institutions are respecting us and our lives and our voices,” said Rodrigues.
For more information about CIW, visit www.ciw-online.org.
Photo courtesy of dvaires/Creative Commons
