Two trips I took in the past month brought into clear focus the abandonment of America’s values by a hostile presidential administration and callous business interests.
First, I spent a day in Southwest Florida with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. The coalition has battled slavery in Florida’s fields—yes, literally slavery in 21st century America—and now is working, with the AFL-CIO’s assistance, to raise farm workers’ wages by convincing McDonald’s and its subsidiary Chipotle to pay just one penny more per pound for tomatoes.
One penny a pound for a company that made $2.6 billion in profits last year and paid its CEO more than $8 million in 2004. Why is this even a fight?
In Immokalee I saw a nightmare but also the sparks of hope. Farm workers toil from dawn to dusk and are paid about 45 cents for every 32-pound container of tomatoes they pick—no overtime pay, no health insurance, no sick leave or vacations. Housing is deplorable—and costly. Three people pay $160 a week for a 10-foot by 10-foot room. Tomato pickers tell of bosses beating workers in the field because they stopped to ask for water. It’s nearly impossible to believe these living and working conditions exist in America today.
But the workers are far from hopeless. Last year, following a national boycott, the coalition won a David-and-Goliath victory when Yum! Brands, which owns Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut and other fast-food giants, agreed to wage increases and a code of conduct for farm workers.
The Mexican, Guatemalan and Haitian workers of the Immokalee tomato fields know they are not fighting alone. They have the committed support of clergy and congregations and of the union movement. Already AFL-CIO activists have sent nearly 20,000 messages to McDonald’s urging the company to agree to fair wages. I hope you will join the fight—just click here to send your message to McDonald’s.
Despite the exploitation, Immokalee is charged with the excitement of dreams waiting to be fulfilled.
And that contrast with my next trip was devastating. I visited New Orleans—the city America forgot.
In the lower 9th Ward there is only the odor of mildew and block after block of empty, smashed homes, upturned boats and automobiles, mountains of tree limbs and abandoned furniture. In New Orleans, I witnessed the nightmare of silence—no saws running, no trucks hauling, no backhoes. No police officers, no construction workers, no camera crews. No leadership from our elected officials and the Bush administration.
The farm workers of Immokalee have endured and fought the worst kinds of abuse for many, many decades. I hope to God the same won’t be true of the victims of last summer’s hurricanes. I pray to God this summer’s hurricanes won’t create another hell on earth for the vulnerable people—the poor, the people of color—in their path.
My trips to Immokalee and New Orleans reminded me just how badly America’s values have been tarnished by the class war being waged by those who wield economic and political power in America today. They reminded my why America needs unions. And they reminded me why we need government leaders who care about and work for and fight for working families, not the obsessive profit lust that drives corporate interests today.
