Last Saturday, upwards of 300 New Yorkers joined Florida farmworker organization the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) for a march through Manhattan to demand that Wendy’s join the CIW’s innovative Fair Food Program. The program is a collaboration between Florida’s tomato growers, major retailers, and farmworkers, ensuring the human rights and dignity of farmworkers through guarantees of basic rights such as payment for time worked, access to water, shade, and bathrooms in the fields, and the right to work free from sexual harassment. McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, and eight other major fast food corporations and food companies have signed onto the Fair Food Agreement, which has begun to dramatically change the lives of farmworkers in Florida’s tomato fields. Wendy’s continues to hold out, but hopefully the CIW’s presence in New York this week will help the company decide to do the right thing.
Before starting Saturday’s march, CIW members and allies dramatized the Coalition’s journey thus far through a powerful and often very funny theater piece featuring some well-known characters. Check out this slideshow to see the story for yourself!
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Some of our favorite moments from Saturday’s march:
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