If you could help end modern-day slavery in Florida’s fields with an email, would you? Slow Food is continuing to support the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a community worker rights organization based in Florida, in their latest campaign. For this Student Farmworker Alliance (SFA), their student activist arm, to gather voices, young and old, as they request that Florida Governor Crist join the conversation to end modern-day slavery in the Florida fields.
The CIW has been campaigning to end poor farmworker conditions in Florida fields since their organizing began in 1993. The conditions faced by farmworkers in the Florida agricultural industry range from sub-poverty wages to actual modern-day slavery. In fact, the CIW has worked with the US Department of Justice on the successful prosecution of 7 cases of modern-day slavery over the past decade. While the CIW has been successful in pressuring seven major food giants including Subway, Burger King, McDonald’s and Taco Bell to work with them to improve farmworkers’ pay and working conditions in Florida, the three most recent Governors of Florida have not joined the conversation surrounding these campaigns and the issues at the heart of these victories. Most inexplicable, Florida’s governors have remained silent on the prevalence of modern-day slavery in the agricultural industry in their state. Now the CIW is asking that everyone take advantage of the e-action campaign to encourage Governor Crist to step up and speak out, once and for all, against slavery in the fields.
For more information about this campaign or other CIW work, click here; you can also look back at some of the our old blog entries, which provide an overview of some of the recent cases.
