Northeast Tour - December 2008
The Northeast Tour started with excitement when what was planned as a delegation to Subway's Independent Purchasing Cooperative (IPC) in Miami became a celebration when Subway agreed to work with the CIW to improve wages and working conditions! Click here for more details on the Subway agreement.
After 8 years of the Campaign for Fair Food, the four largest fast-food companies have now taken responsibility for improving wages and conditions, and so the CIW and the Tour prepared to shift their focus to the supermarket and food service industries...
Following the agreement, Miami faith leaders led a prayer of thanksgiving for the agreement and a blessing for the CIW farmworkers and Interfaith Action staff about to head toward the Northeast. The tour then hit the road for the drive to the first stop, Duke University in North Carolina. Following educational presentations, a delegation delivered a copy of the most recent Alliance for Fair Food letter to a local Food Lion. Delhaize America, owner of Food Lion as well as Hannaford, Sweetbay, Bloom, Bottom Dollar Food, Harveys, and Sweetbay Supermarkets, had been previously sent this letter and other letters without response. The manager of this particular Food Lion was very sympathetic and promised to pass the letter onto Delhaize America's headquarters in North Carolina.
The next stop was Washington, DC, where among other presentations, CIW and IA led a brownbag lunch discussion sponsored by the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, the International Labor Rights Forum, and the Institute for Policy Studies. Many participants in the brownbag lunch discussion then joined us for a giant delegation to a nearby Safeway, which owns 1,775 stores across North America, including Vons, Randall's, Tom Thumb, Genuardi's, and Carrs. The Safeway manager was quite taken aback by the number of local shoppers interested in this matter, and promised to pass the Alliance for Fair Food letter on to Corporate Headquarters.
The tour continued north with CIW members and IA staff leading presentations at Yale Divinity School (pictured above) and Union Theological Seminary's Poverty Initiative. Students at Yale Divinity School were prepared to play a key role in the Subway campaign, as Subway's headquarters are nearby, but were happy to instead to turn their attention to supermarkets and food service providers. Speaking of food service providers, the tour didn't miss the opportunity to personally deliver copies of the Alliance for Fair Food letter to the Corporate Headquarters of Aramark and Sodexo, two leading providers of food service to universities, school systems, convention centers and more.
In New York City, the Church of the Holy Trinity welcomed the CIW and Interfaith Action for a special presentation on Human Rights Day. The event was co-sponsored by Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, Faith Leaders for Food Justice, Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition, Hazon, The New York City Coalition Against Hunger, New York Faith and Justice, World Hunger Year, and other organizations-- providing an opportunity for a deep discussion on the many aspects of food justice. Other congregations across the Northeast also welcomed the tour, from Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church near Philadelphia to the Shoreline Unitarian Universalist Society in CT, where this member of the youth group tries his best effort at hoisting the tomato bucket.
In Boston, the tour was again joined by a sizeable group of local community members for a delegation to Shaw's (pictured above), owned by SuperValu, which also owns Save-A-Lot, Albertson´s, Jewel-Osco, Acme, Shaw’s, and Shop-n-Save. The tour later delivered a copy of the Alliance for Fair Food letter to a local Stop & Shop, owned by Boston-based Ahold USA. SuperValu and Ahold have both failed to respond to previous letters from the CIW and the Alliance for Fair Food, but the managers promised to pass the letters on. The tour members were left to wait and see if pride in "better quality and variety" also includes human rights.
