[CMI-CM] bike for justice

[Gudalupe Sosa]

* * www.ciw-online.org
   Buenas!! The reason for sending you this email is
to invite you and to ask for your help in a bike tour
that i plan to start on Friday June 6 in front of the
YUM!! 
headquarters located in Lousville Kentuky and ending
in front of the Taco Bell head quarters in Irvine
California. We will be doing stops in between to give
presentations on the situation here in Immokalee. This
 trip was actually the idea of a student from Maryland
but it tourns out that because of unexpected
circumstances he is no longer able to begin the tour,
therefore I have decided to continue with it and
hopefully find another person or persons to ride with
me. So who am I  well, my name is Lupe and i’m
writting you from Immokalee Fl. I’ve been here since
march as a volunteer after taking part in a fast that
was done in front of the taco bell headquarters with
the CIW i decided to come to Immokalee and dedicate my
time to them and well now this bike tour is happening
and i’ve assigned myself the job of coordinating it
but I do need your help because i’ve never actually
done anything like this before, I really want this to
happen because I feel that in doing this we could
bring alot of attention and alot more support to the
boycott tacobell campaign. I don’t know if you have
heard of the Taco bell boycott? but it deals with the
tomatoe pickers here in Immokalee and their demand to
taco bell to pay one cent more per pound of tomatoe
they buy and for that extra one cent that they pay to
be distributed amongst the workers.  I’ve included
here some information on what the coalition is and
what it does. You can get more complete info by
visiting the website. But if you have any help that
you can give me like routes that are safest to take,
fundraising, lodging, etc...
   The CIW is a community-based worker organization.
The members are largely Latino, Haitian, and Mayan
Indian immigrants working in low-wage jobs throughout
the state of Florida. 
   We strive to build our strength as a community on a
basis of reflection and analysis, constant attention
to coalition building across ethnic divisions, and an
ongoing investment in leadership development to help
workers from the base of our community continually
develop their skills in community education and
organization.
    From this basis we fight for, among other things:
a fair wage for the work we do, more respect on the
part of our bosses and the industries where we work,
better and cheaper housing, stronger laws and stronger
enforcement against those who would violate workers'
rights, the right to organize on our jobs without fear
of retaliation, and an end to indentured servitude in
the fields. 
   The CIW is based in Immokalee, but our impact
reaches beyond the Southwest Florida area to cover the
state of Florida as a whole. Southwest Florida is the
state's most important center for agricultural
production, and Immokalee is the state's largest
farmworker community. As such, the majority of our
members are farmworkers who spend 8-9 months of the
year here in Southwest Florida then travel north on
the season during the summer months. 
   Many local residents, and thus many of our members,
move out of agriculture and into other low wage
industries that are important in our area, including
the construction, nursery, and tourist industries.
Virtually all of our members are low-income. 
  This campaign, launched in October of 1997, has
brought about several historic changes for thousands
of Florida farmworkers. 
Combining community-wide work stoppages with intense
public pressure -- including an unprecedented
month-long hunger strike by six of our members in 1998
and an historic 230-mile march from Ft. Myers to
Orlando in 2000 -- the campaign ended over twenty
years of stagnant wages in the tomato industry. 
   In 2001, we launched a new phase of the campaign,
announcing a national boycott of Taco Bell for its
refusal to meet with farmworkers and discuss its role,
as a major buyer of Florida tomatoes, in perpetuating
farmworker poverty. 
Anti-Slavery Campaign - The CIW's Anti-Slavery
campaign is an innovative worker-based campaign to
eliminate modern-day slavery in the tomato fields and
orange groves of the East Coast agricultural industry.
In 21st century slavery operations based on debt
bondage, workers are held against their will through
violence and threats of violence, ranging from
intimidation to beatings to pistol-whippings. In the
past five years, the CIW has uncovered, investigated,
and assisted the Civil Rights Division of the
Department of Justice in prosecuting in three large,
multi-state slavery operations based out of Florida,
and acted in as consultants on two others. In those
few short years, our efforts have resulted in: freedom
for thousands of workers in debt bondage, the
successful prosecution of various agricultural
employers, the education of local and federal law
enforcement, the development of a growing base of
aware and committed worker activists, and stronger
federal laws against trafficking in human beings. 
  This campaign, launched during the 1996-1997 season,
began with a 500-worker march to a local crewleader's
house to protest the beating of one of our members
here in Immokalee. Since then, it has evolved into a
nationally-recognized program focusing on the
elimination of modern-day slavery in Florida's fields.

  Other accomplishments include... the establishment
of a highly successful consumer cooperative, providing
staple foods at nearly wholesale prices and breaking
the hold of the traditionally overpriced local market;
a growing, active, multi-ethnic membership base;
weekly radio programs reaching thousands of workers in
both Spanish and Haitian Creole; an innovative program
of education and leadership development including
participatory video, street art, popular theater, and
community festivals; an annual scholarship program for
the children of local workers and Latino cultural
festival in conjunction with an area Spanish-language
radio station... and much more!

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