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UNITE HERE Joins Food Chain Workers Alliance

Submitted by Ian Mikusko on Wed, 02/16/2011 - 13:21
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The Food Service Division of UNITE HERE has officially joined the Food Chain Workers Alliance.  The Food Chain Workers Alliance is a “coalition of worker-based organizations whose members plant, harvest, process, pack, transport, prepare, serve, and sell food, organizing to improve wages and working conditions for all workers along the food chain. 

UNITE HERE has been organizing workers in the food service industry for over 100 years.  Our union whole-heartedly supports the mission of the Alliance and it is with great excitement that we join its ranks. 

Other members of the Alliance include the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Comite de Apoyo a los Trabajadores Agricolas, Brandworkers International, Center for New Community, International Labor Rights Forum, Just Harvest USA, Northwest Arkansas Workers' Justice Center, Restaurant Opportunities Center United, Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1500, and Warehouse Workers for Justice. 

“All the News that’s Fit to Print”: CIW Victory Hits the Times

Submitted by Ian Mikusko on Mon, 01/24/2011 - 19:50
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Here at ‘the blog of record’ (Stir It Up), we’ve been covering the Coalition of Immokalee Workers,  Student Farmworker Alliance struggle for the past two years. Following our lead, no doubt, the New York Times recently published a story describing the huge CIW victory in their Campaign for Fair Food.
 
In the article, After Long Fight Farmworkers in Florida Win Increase in Pay, the New York Times describes the struggle:
 
After fighting for more than a decade for better wages, a group of Florida farmworkers has hashed out the final piece of an extraordinary agreement with local tomato growers and several big-name buyers, including the fast-food giants McDonald’s and Burger King, that will pay the pickers roughly a penny more for every pound of fruit they harvest.
 
The Times also cites the reaction of an expert:
Read more

A Visit to Immokalee

Submitted by Kyle Schafer on Fri, 12/17/2010 - 15:42
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Right now I’m sitting in the Coalition of Immokalee Workers office and community center. It is my first visit to Immokalee since first being inspired by a CIW member way back during the Taco Bell boycott, and as usually seems to be the case with my CIW-related travels these days, I find myself reflecting on the movement.
 
Yesterday, as I drove down US-27, through a couple hundred miles of rural Central Florida, I thought about how incredible it is that this tiny place has become a beacon of hope, an example of the transformative potential of worker power and community solidarity. I have met people from all across the country whose first exposure to the labor movement has been through a CIW march or presentation in their town. For some of those people, far from the tomato fields, the experience has changed the course of their entire lives. I now sit in a room home to five desks, a table, the Student/Farmworker Alliance and Interfaith Action, surrounded by CIW allies who have moved to Immokalee and devoted their lives to solidarity and struggle.
 
Also as I drove yesterday, my friends and UNITE HERE members back in Chicago were on strike at the Palmer House hotel. At a brief stop on my drive, I had quickly emailed one of the professors who helped lead community support for the cafeteria workers at Loyola to tell her about the hotel strike. She almost immediately responded that in fact she had already spent her morning on the picket line.
 
From this vantage point, “movement-building” feels like a lot more than a high-minded phrase. It is actually happening! In unsuspecting buildings and rooms cramped with volunteers, picket signs and information packets. In churches, classrooms and basement apartments. Even if I think just of the people I have met through the CIW and through UNITE HERE, I feel like just maybe we’ve got a chance to turn the tide. 
 
The victories won’t come easy, and the struggle will not end soon (or ever), but we’re building something that has real power. The activity in this small room will soon force the massive supermarket industry to start taking responsibility for workers in its supply chain. The activity surely happening near my own desk back in Chicago will continue to alter the power dynamics in hotels, cafeterias and neighborhoods across the United States and Canada. 
 

It makes me think back to 2007, when I stood on a stage in suburban Chicago chanting “Ya cayó, ya cayó, El Rey ya cayó” with SFA – we were celebrating the CIW McDonald’s victory and were certain that Burger King (the next target at the time) had essentially already lost. We were right, and I still feel the sentiment on days like today: We are winning. And in some ways, we’ve already won.

 

Tools of the Trade Edition One: The RFP Process

Submitted by Ian Mikusko on Mon, 11/29/2010 - 19:07
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Those of you who are familiar with Stir It Up, know that it isn't just a website, it's the embodiment of a philosophy.  Like our friends at the Student Farmworker Alliance and the Real Food Challenge, we believe that college students have a unique ability to fight for progressive change in the food service industry.  The more students who insert themselves in campus food-related decisions, the greater the potential that we'll see justice in the food system.

With that in mind, Stir It Up will be unrolling a series of handouts with crucial information about the higher education food industry.  Tools of the Trade, Edition 1 (available for download) features information about the Request for Proposals (RFP) process, which is an invitation for companies to bid on a university contract:

Though it is far from assured that an RFP for the food service operation will be issued while you are an active student (many food service contracts are for far longer than four years), if it does happen, the RFP process is an invaluable opportunity to influence your university's food service operation.  Do not be discouraged if you do not have this opportunity, however, because there are plenty of other ways to get involved (many of which will be featured in the Tools of the Trade series). 

If you are interested in seeing when your school's food service contract expires, check our contract database to see if we have a copy.  If not (and you attend a public school) take a look at our Freedom of Information Act guide to learn how to obtain a copy of your school's food service contract (or you can let Heidi Heidi High-Tops guide you).

CFSC Conference: An Executive Summary

Submitted by Ian Mikusko on Thu, 10/21/2010 - 08:43
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I had another great day at the Community Food Security Coalition conference in New Orleans.  My biggest regret: I didn't make it out of the French Quarter to the non-tourist neighborhoods.  Word is, that's where you get authentic New Orleans cuisine.  (Locals aren't caught dead eating the French Quarter...god I hate being a tourist).

Anyway, the conference was packed and was a tremendous success.  I'm not the only person who thought so.  Here are some links from the blogosphere/newsosphere with other takes on the event for those who wanted to go but couldn't make it for whatever reason:

The CFSC has another event in Portland this coming Spring, the National Conference on State and Municipal Food Policy.  Click here if you're interested in learning more.  Also, college students who are interested in these issues should check out the Real Food Challenge and Slow Food on Campus, two other great organizations fighting for positive change in university food service.

Food, Culture, Justice: Day 1 at the Community Food Security Coalition Conference

Submitted by Ian Mikusko on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 20:59
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When I walked past the Canal Street McDonald's last evening without buying a Big Mac (which I have to admit, I sometimes crave), I knew that the day's events had had an impact on me.  After a day of learning of injustices of all types in the food system--many of them the result of corporate power in the industry--there was no way I could bring myself to order a double cheeseburger without feeling ashamed of myself (instead, I felt temporarily hungry, which is preferable IMO). 

The event in question was an annual conference--Food Culture Justice--organized by the Community Food Security Coalition.  And my first day at the conference, which is taking place in New Orleans, was a tremendous experience.  

Creating alliances within the food movement increases the movement's strength exponentially.  So, when farmworkers' rights advocates link up with food service workers rights' advocates, who link up with sustainability advocates and local farming advocates, what you get is a beautiful thing: the ability to take on entrenched powers who would prefer that we all mind our business so that the food system remains the same.

The conference was filled with representatives from great organizations: The Food Chain Workers Alliance, Food First, the Restaurant Opportunities Center, the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, the National Family Farm Coalition and the Real Food Challenge, just to name a few.  

The event continues today.  So stay tuned for live tape-delayed updates from New Orleans.

Support the Student Farmworker Alliance

Submitted by Ian Mikusko on Tue, 10/05/2010 - 14:10
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Ever since it came into existence ten years ago, the Student/Farmworker Alliance has been remarkably successful in organizing for social change.  Recently in their Dine with Dignity campaign--which we followed very closely here at Stir It Up--they took on three multi-national food service companies and won agreements ensuring that the companies will work to improve wages and working conditions in the fields of their Florida tomato suppliers.  

It has won all of these campaigns in spite of the fact that it is truly a grassroots organization; an organization that is able to function largely due to the support of its allies.  So what better time than the tenth anniversary of its founding to become sustaining member....

Become a sustaining member of SFA today!

Coalition of Immokalee Workers and Sodexo Reach Agreement!

Submitted by Ian Mikusko on Tue, 08/24/2010 - 17:37
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 First Compass Group (Chartwells, Bon Appetit).  Then Aramark.  Now Sodexo.  

Read about the agreement at the top of the Student/Farmworker Alliance website. Also check out the CIW, Sodexo press release.

 

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Museum on Wheels: Farmworkers Travel to Tell their Story

Submitted by Hannah Caruso on Thu, 08/12/2010 - 15:57
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The abuses of the corporate food service industry are heinous. Farmworkers know this all too well.  On farms in Florida they have been held captive in involuntary servitude. Physically intimidated. And denied fresh air and access to bathrooms. 
 
Our friends at the Student Farmworker Alliance (a partner of the CIW or Coalition of Imokalee Workers) have been working hard to broadcast this message. 
 
A horrifying article in Labor Notes slams these circumstances.  The article narrates a visit to the “Modern Slavery Museum” a traveling project of the CIW:
 
“The trailer, which already feels uncomfortably small, is a replica of one in southwest Florida where 12 farmworkers were forcibly kept between 2005 and 2007. Locked in at night, they had no place to relieve themselves and were forced to foul a corner of their cramped quarters. When someone fought back, he was beaten and chained to a pole. The chain and padlock, still twisted from when workers finally forced it off, rest on the trailer’s wall.”
 
Though the struggle for justice continues, the CIW won a great victory last spring; in no small part due to the Student Farmworker Alliance. Last school year, student activism on campuses across the country pressured Aramark and Compass Group—two of the three largest food service management companies in the world—to reach an agreement with the CIW; an agreement that will result in better working conditions for Florida farm workers.
 
This is a great testament to the power of students to take control of food service on their campuses. And a reminder that, in a world of multi-national food corporations, student action on one end of the country can have an effect thousands of miles away.

Real Food Challenge Summer Happenings!

Submitted by Kyle Schafer on Thu, 07/08/2010 - 16:23
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We here at Stir It Up would like to congratulate our friends at the Real Food Challenge on winning the Echoing Green Fellowship. Check out the exciting announcement here.
 
If you are interested in getting involved with the Real Food Challenge as they continue their exciting work, we encourage you to attend one of their leadership conferences this summer. In RFC’s own words,
 
“Each event will feature a unique series of workshops ranging from storytelling as an organizing tool and ‘power, privilege and oppression in the food system,’ to ones on campaign planning and how to shift campus food systems.  All participating teams will leave with a full action plan for the school year.
 
These trainings are much more than workshops: we'll cook and eat delicious meals together, visit and work with local food justice organizations, do all sorts of outdoor activities and (of course) have dance parties!  Everyone walks away with new friends, allies, concrete skills, and the real tools needed to revolutionize our food system!”
 
The trainings will be in Orlando (Aug. 11-15), Boston (Aug. 19-22), Atascadero, California (Aug. 26-29) and North Carolina (Sept. 4-6). For all the info you need, check out the Real Food Challenge web page about the events.

 

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