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NEWS & LETTERS, April 2002
Immokalee tour for Taco Bell boycott
Memphis, Tenn.-The Coalition of Immokalee Workers came
to Memphis for the last stop on their national Taco Bell Truth Tour. Fifty
workers and their student supporters stepped off their buses to spread the word,
along with their Memphis supporters, of the unfair, often inhuman working
conditions under which they pick tomatoes in Florida. We began the day at the National Civil Rights Museum.
After a rally there, we marched three miles-chanting and beating drums and pots
and pans-to a Taco Bell. There we rallied again 100 strong, bringing the
Immokalee workers' message to the Mid-South. Throughout the day, young Mexican,
Haitian and Guatemalan women and men uttered the words of Martin Luther King Jr. Mathieu Beaucicot-I came to Florida from Haiti in 1992.
I pick tomatoes there for Six-L's, which pays $5.15 an hour. I'm here to fight
for changes and help my family, to pay for education, insurance, housing and
food for the children. Taco Bell buys tomatoes from Six-L's. Our struggle is the
same as Dr. Martin Luther King's. We have come together with students and with
people like you to break the chains of slavery that we face as workers in the
field. On our Haitian flag it says, "Union is our
strength." If we fight together, there's no wind, no storm, no force that
can beat us. We here are the wind of liberty. We're heading home soon, but that
liberty will continue to blow through this country until we win our fight. Last night, when we were surrounded by police in Little
Rock, we felt stronger than ever before because we thought of Martin Luther King
and all those who have come before us and how they had to fight that kind of
oppression. As King said, if one of us falls, the struggle does not fall. Gaurav Deep Arora-It's important for students to be
involved in this movement, especially because young people 18 to 24 are the
prime consumers for Taco Bell. Taco Bell spends $220 million a year to make us
eat their food, so we have a right to demand the food is not produced under
conditions of slavery. It's fitting that we're here in front of the Civil
Rights Museum because of the role of students in the Civil Rights Movement. We
have to carry that on. We have an important role to keep on fighting for fair
work. The workers are teaching the students something our schools don't: to
challenge power. Julia Gabriel-Many times people buy tomatoes that look
very pretty, but they don't know the sweat and violence in those tomatoes. The
bosses sometimes abuse the workers. There are workers in a kind of slavery, who
are not allowed to leave the camps. When I came to the U.S., in the labor camps of South
Carolina, I lived the most terrible things you could imagine in the tomato and
pepper fields. That's why we're fighting for a better life. In Los Angeles the
police tried to break us up and throw us out. If they throw us out of here,
we're coming back again and doing another tour. Hector Vasquez-Comrades, this is the precise moment when
workers here are demonstrating their solidarity with the workers in the fields.
Workers have lost their lives in struggles all over Latin America. We have to
see that capital has a false face that covers up human beings. This means that
this struggle is for us, for our children and for the children of our children. Lucas Benitez-It's great to see the solidarity with us
here in Memphis. It's an honor to close this tour at a place that is sacred for
us. Many years ago Dr. King came here to support workers who were struggling
against the city for a better wage. Today we do not have the slightest doubt
that, if he were here, he would be with us too. It's time to say no more sweatshop labor! |
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