[GreenYes] Fwd: More on Taco Bell Protests over Farm Worker Rights in September

[Gary Liss <gary@garyliss.com>]

>Boycott Taco Bell, Support Farm Workers’ Rights
>Call to Action for September 23-25
>
>From: Boycott Taco Bell <s25action@yahoo.com>
>
>Please forward widely
>
>Unite with workers, students, clergy and community activists on September 
>23-25.
>
>The Student-Farm Worker Alliance of Southern California, which is helping 
>the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (an organization of farm workers in 
>Florida) to organize massive demonstrations in Los Angeles and Irvine, 
>California on September 23-25, is issuing a call for people concerned with 
>the plight of farm workers (see below for more info.) from across the 
>country and world to converge on Southern California on S23-25. The Taco 
>Bell Truth Tour of farm workers will end its nationwide tour in southern 
>California at two huge marches. On Sunday, September 23 in Los Angeles and 
>on Monday, September 24 in Irvine at Taco Bell’s global corporate 
>headquarters there will be legal, permitted mass! marches and rallies. 
>Tuesday, September 25 will be a day of militant direct action in Irvine, 
>California, as well as a national day of direct action.
>
>S25 – National Day of Direct Action in Support of the Boycott of Taco Bell
>www.tacobellsucks.org
>The Student-Farm Worker Alliance is calling for people to come together in 
>Irvine, California on September 23 and 24 for the legal mass marches and 
>on September 25 (S25) to participate in civil disobedience protests at 
>Taco Bell’s corporate headquarters. If you cannot come, we are urging 
>people to hold direct action protests on S25 at local Taco Bells in their 
>own cities. If you plan to hold a protest on S25 in solidarity with the 
>protests happening in Irvine, please EMAIL OR CALL US so that we know (for 
>media purposes). If you plan to hold a protest in your city or if you plan 
>to come to southern California for the mass protests and would like a! n 
>action packet sent to your mailing address, email s25action@yahoo.com, 
>call (818) 629-1713 or go to www.tacobellsucks.org and fill out the 
>request form (which, if not up now, should be there soon). The action 
>packet includes such information as how to find housing for the protests 
>in L.A. and Irvine, Convergence Center location and dates and times of 
>operation, suggestions for direct action, leaflets on the boycott of Taco 
>Bell, etc.
>
>DEMAND legalization now, DEMAND justice for immigrants and workers! DEMAND 
>an end to exploitation all over the world! DOWN with neoliberalism!
>
>Why boycott?
>.
>The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a farm worker organization based 
>in Immokalee, Florida, has been asking for almost 2 years to meet with 
>Taco Bell representatives to discuss the working and living conditions of 
>the farm workers! who pick Taco Bell’s tomatoes. Farm workers who pick 
>tomatoes for the Immokalee-based Six L’s Packing Co., Inc., one of the 
>nation’s largest tomato producers and a contractor for Taco Bell, are paid 
>40 cents for every 32-pound bucket they pick. That is the same per bucket 
>rate, or “piece rate,” paid in 1978. At that rate, workers must pick and 
>haul 2 TONS of tomatoes to make $50 in a day (According to the US 
>Department of Labor, the median annual income of farm workers today is 
>$7,500). When adjusted for inflation farm workers real wages have 
>decreased by 5% over the last decade.
>Workers picking for Six L’s are denied the right to organize and the right 
>to over-time pay for overtime work (working an average 12 hours a day). 
>They receive no health insurance, no sick leave, no paid holidays, no paid 
>vacation, and no pension. Taco Bell has refused to discuss these 
>conditions with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.
>Taco Bell reported earnings of more than $5 billion in! 1999, while 
>Tricon, Inc. (the parent corporation of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC), 
>earned over $22 billion last year. Taco Bell could double the picking 
>piece rate paid to farm workers by agreeing to pay just one penny per 
>pound for the tomatoes it buys from Six L’s. We believe that Taco Bell, as 
>part of the world’s largest restaurant system, can easily afford to pay 
>one penny more. Even passing all the cost onto the consumer would raise 
>the price of a Chalupa by LESS than ¼ of 1 cent.
>JOIN farm workers from the CIW in protesting the inhumane working and 
>living conditions of the women and men who pick Taco Bell’s tomatoes. Help 
>reverse decades of farm worker poverty.
>
>
>Remember:
>
>For information on the protests on September 23 and 24:
>www.ciw-online.org
>(213) 353-3921
>
>For information on S25:
>S25@yahoo.com
>(818) 629-1713
>www.tacobellsucks.org
>
>
>
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Make <http://phonecard.yahoo.com/>international calls for as low as 
>$0.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger.

Gary Liss
916-652-7850
Fax: 916-652-0485

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