Thursday, March 25, 2010
The members of Lawrence Fair Food, like many groups on campus this time of year, have a table on Wescoe Beach. But they’re not asking for your vote — they’re asking for your support.
Last night, (left to right) Iliana Krehbiel, Brock Rovenstine, Aaron Stables, Nate Henricks, Jenn Hunt and Kasabi Chinonge, members of the Lawrence Fair Food Organization, began preparing dinner for Thursday's Latin American Festival. The activities at the Eccumenical Christian Ministries center will begin at 6 p.m. and will include live Afro-Latin beats by Circo Express. A dinner of vast variety is free and donations are welcome.
They’re quick to stress that they’re not a charity group. They are fighting not for, but with, people who they say are cheated out of livable wages: the tomato-pickers in Immokalee, Fla.
“We’re not helping them,” said Parendi Birdie, a freshman from Lawrence. “It’s not charity. It’s solidarity.”
Immokalee is home to a large number of Hispanic, Haitian and Mayan Indian immigrants working as low-wage harvesters in the region, which produces a large portion of the country’s tomatoes. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, or CIW, fights to improve the harvesters’ working conditions.
Lawrence Fair Food is a group of students and members of the Lawrence community. It’s part of a larger, nationwide organization known as the Student/Farmworker Alliance, or SFA, which works in partnership with the CIW.
“The things we’re doing are the things that are being done all around the United States,” Birdie said. “We really are working in solidarity with the CIW. We’re doing whatever they’re doing.”
According to the CIW, workers receive around 45 cents for every 32-pound bucket of tomatoes they pick. On average, they pick 61 buckets of tomatoes a day, earning an average daily wage of $27. To make minimum wage, the workers would have to pick 2.5 tons of tomatoes per day for a 10-hour workday. That would mean picking 32 pounds of tomatoes every two minutes for 10 hours.
Lawrence Fair Food is joining the SFA and CIW in a campaign against Kroger, one of the largest grocers in the nation, which owns retailers such as Dillons. For this campaign, the SFA and CIW are presenting a list of requests to the company, including paying farmworkers a penny more per pound of tomatoes harvested. The last time the wage per bucket for farmworkers was significantly changed was in 1978. According to the CIW, if the wage rate changed with inflation, workers would be earning 92 cents per bucket, instead of 45.
When contacted, Kroger representatives were unavailable for comment.
The SFA and CIW will participate in a freedom march from Tampa, Fla., to Lakeland, Fla., in April. Members of Lawrence Fair Food will be attending the march.
To raise the funds to participate, Lawrence Fair Food and KU Latin American Solidarity will be hosting a Latin American Food Festival tonight from 6 to 10 p.m. at the ECM. All of the proceeds from the event will go toward sending members of Lawrence Fair Food to the march.
“The work we’re doing is significant and necessary,” said Ashley Depenbusch, a 2008 graduate and KU alumna who will be attending the march in April. “The role we play is powerful. It seems remote, but it really is immediate. It’s on our tables. It’s in our stores. This is something that makes them visible human beings.”
A large portion of the tomatoes we eat come from the Immokalee area, said Shona Clarkson, a member of the CIW.
The CIW has won the agreement of several corporations to start enforcing codes of conduct against abuses in their tomato supply chains. Clarkson said that organizing locally had played a big role in the large strides the CIW has made.
“It’s really strategic to get students involved,” said Clarkson, a junior from St. Louis. “In order to get real change, you can’t just get to the growers. You have to talk to the people buying the tomatoes.”
Burger King, Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Subway and Whole Foods are among corporations that have already agreed to call for improved working conditions and wages for farmworkers.
Gerardo Reyes, a founding member of the CIW, will be presenting at the Food Festival tonight. Reyes will also speak at a rally on Friday afternoon at the Burge Union. Afterwards, the group will march to Dillons, 1015 W. 23rd Street.
— Edited by Katie Blankenau
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