Join the National Petition Campaign to end Sweatshops and Slavery in the Florida Fields
Click here to download the petition to collect signatures in your community.
Click here to sign the petition online.
Click here for individual petitions that you can pass out to your congregation or group (four to a page).
The national petition campaign calls on Burger King and other food industry leaders to work with the CIW to:
*improve the wages and working conditions of the men and women who harvest their tomatoes
*support an industry-wide effort to end human rights violations and modern-day slavery in all of Florida's fields.
The petition will also serve as notice that those who sign are "prepared to stop patronizing Burger King now, and other food industry leaders in the future, should they fail to do so."
The members of St. Columkille Catholic Church have come up with a creative and visually powerful way of collecting signatures- on farmworker work shirts (shown in photos on left). Click here for pictures and instructions on how you can do this in your own congregation
The launch of this petition campaign comes on the heels of a January 2008 federal indictment for the seventh case of modern-day slavery to emerge from Florida's fields in the past ten years. US Attorney Doug Molloy called the operation “slavery, plain and simple” (Ft. Myers News-Press, “Group accused of keeping, beating, stealing from Immokalee laborers” 1/18/08). The employers were charged with beating workers who were unwilling or unable to work or who attempted to leave their employ, holding workers in debt, and chaining and locking workers inside u-haul trucks as punishment ("How about a side order of human rights?" Miami Herald, 12/16/07). The workers picked tomatoes on Immokalee area farms. This slavery cases flourished because of the norm of sweatshop conditions faced by Florida tomato pickers, who haven't received a real wage increase in three decades and are denied most basic labor rights. Tomato pickers earn just 40 to 50 cents for every 32 pound bucket of tomatoes that they pick and haul.
Petition campaigns and consumer actions by British citizens helped hasten the abolition of the British slave trade in 1807. The CIW petition campaign honors the 200th anniversary of the US ban against the importation of slaves (1808), and echoes the petition strategy of the early abolitionist movement.
Join the Campaign for Fair Food!
■ Send an e-mail to Burger King with Sojourners' e-action alert.
■ Write to Burger King to encourage it to work with the CIW to improve tomato pickers’ wages and conditions. Send letters to: Mr. John Chidsey, CEO, Burger King Corporate Office, 5505 Blue Lagoon Drive, Miami, FL 33126. Or contact us for pre-printed postcards to BK that you can share with your congregation or group.
■ Organize a picket or deliver a letter to the Manager of your local Burger King. Click here to download a letter you can deliver to the manger.
■ Learn more and educate your community. Browse our online resources or contact Interfaith Action for educational materials.
■ Make a donation to support Interfaith Action’s work for farmworker justice. Send your contribution to Interfaith Action at 1107 New Market Rd, Immokalee, FL 34142.
■ Come on an Immersion Visit to Immokalee. Contact Jordan Buckley, jordan(at)interfaithact.org or 239-986-9101, for more information about bringing a group from your congregation to Immokalee to hear directly from CIW farmworker leaders, go on a walking tour of the farmworker community, and learn firsthand about the Campaign for Fair Food and how you can get involved in Interfaith Action's work.
