For Immediate Release:
Thursday, August 30, 2007 12:00 PM EST

Contact:
Marc Rodrigues, 239-292-3431
Guadalupe Gomez, 219-617-0966

STUDENTS, FARMWORKERS JOIN FORCES IN PROTEST AT BURGER KING HEADQUARTERS

Major November mobilization to be announced as Burger King continues to drag feet

Miami, FL – More than 100 students from across the U.S., dozens of farmworkers from Immokalee, and local Miami-area allies will join together to protest Burger King's continued refusal to work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) and to expose the reality of sweatshop conditions in the fields where Burger King’s tomatoes are picked.

On Friday, August 31, 2007, from 11:30am to 1:30pm outside Burger King headquarters (5505 Blue Lagoon Drive), farmworkers and their student allies will also be announcing plans for a massive action against Burger King in November.

The students will be making the trip to Miami from Immokalee, where they are gathering this weekend for the third-annual Student/Farmworker Alliance (SFA) Encuentro, or gathering, which seeks to unite the broad SFA network and formulate strategy for the Campaign for Fair Food amongst Burger King's target youth demographic.

SFA member Guadalupe Gomez stated, “Burger King has flatly refused to join Yum and McDonald's in taking a stand against the exploitation of farmworkers. Instead, they actually offered to retrain farmworkers to work in Burger King’s restaurants – eliminating farmworker poverty by eliminating farmworkers – adding insult to injury with such an obviously unworkable, and frankly pretty ridiculous, idea.”

“More and more young people are taking a stand alongside farmworkers for human rights and fairness in the fields,” added SFA member Marc Rodrigues, “and no amount of slick advertising or empty excuses from Burger King is going to change that fact. Burger King must come to the table and work with the CIW, or they will continue to hear from us.”

Presently, Florida tomato pickers earn 40-45 cents for every 32-lb bucket of tomatoes they pick. At this rate, a farmworker must pick two tons of tomatoes to make just $50 in a day. Farmworkers regularly work 10-12 hour days with no overtime pay, no health insurance, no right to organize, no sick days and no benefits whatsoever. In the most extreme cases, farmworkers are subjected to conditions of modern-day slavery. The CIW has asked Burger King to pay a premium for their tomatoes to be passed on to tomato pickers to increase their wages and to work with the CIW to improve conditions for farmworkers in the fields.

Background: SFA is a national network of youth and students organizing in alliance with farmworkers to eliminate sweatshop conditions and modern-day slavery in the fields. The CIW is a community organization based in southwest Florida that has been nationally and internationally recognized for its leadership in human rights, including uncovering and assisting in the successful prosecution of five farmworker slavery rings since 1997. The CIW has reached agreements to improve wages and working conditions for Florida farmworkers with Yum Brands in 2005 (after a four-year boycott of Taco Bell); and with McDonald's earlier this year.

##END#