Tomato pickers, supporters start 2nd week of hunger strike

by Evan Silverstein, Presbyterian News Service

LOUISVILLE -- March 4, 2003 [posted here 3-4-03] -- More than 50 farm workers camping outside Taco Bell's corporate headquarters in Irvine, CA, have been on a protest fast for more than a week.

Members of the Florida-based Coalition of Immokalee Workers stopped eating on Feb. 24 to call attention to the low wages paid to the people who pick the tomatoes that go into Burrito Supremes and Gorditos in Taco Bell's 6,500 restaurants nationwide.

Several Presbyterians have joined the hunger strikers, along with sympathetic students, small farmers and Christians and clergy from around the nation.

"The response is, 'We're burying the exploitation we face in the fields every day,'" the Rev. Noelle Damico, the national coordinator of the PC(USA)'s Taco Bell boycott, said by phone from the protest site.

Last year's General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) endorsed the boycott until Taco Bell forces improvements in the workers' wages and working conditions by starting a serious dialogue with its tomato supplier and representatives of the coalition.

"The mood is very good, but physically they're really hurting," said Damico, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ (UCC). "Their basal body temperature dropped, and so they're very cold and they're very tired. They're covered in quilts right now. It's pretty intense."

Wind, rain and unseasonably cold temperatures have battered the protesters. One Immokalee worker has been hospitalized with pneumonia, according to organizers. He was treated and released.

A California woman fasting in solidarity with the farm workers was hospitalized for high blood pressure and continued her fast in the hospital. She was released after two days.

An Arizona college student was admitted to a hospital for observation after the fasting caused problems with his appendix, organizers said. He was treated and released.

Damico said some of the workers have vomited and have been feeling faint. A doctor and nurse at the scene are checking the participants' blood pressure and vital signs daily.

On March 4, the ninth day of fasting, the physician and nurse entered Taco Bell's headquarters to express concern for the workers' health and to request a meeting. The company had them escorted from the building.

"I can't (overemphasize) how profound and serious this is, that these workers are really putting their bodies on the line here to try to get dialogue with Taco Bell," Damico said. "I would say there are about 50 (workers) that have not eaten in a week."

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers is trying to persuade the company, one of the nation's largest tomato buyers, to pay growers 1 cent per pound more, an increase the coalition expects would be passed on to the field workers.

Growers pay the workers 40 to 50 cents per 32-pound bucket of tomatoes. The requested increase would raise the pickers' per-bucket pay by 60 to 80 percent.

According to a U.S. Department of Labor survey, farm pickers made an average of $7,500 a year in 2000, and had no healthcare insurance, overtime or sick leave. Farm workers' income, adjusted for inflation, dropped 10 percent between 1989 and 1998, according to the survey.

Damico said workers, religious leaders and supporters gathered on Feb. 23 for an ecumenical worship service at Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles.

Damico said Presbyterian supporters of the workers have included Immanuel, First Presbyterian Church in Anaheim, CA, and St. Mark Presbyterian Church in Newport, Beach, CA. These congregations have sponsored forums on the farm workers' plight and have provided meals for non-fasting protesters. Gatherings in support of the Irvine hunger strike have been held in cities around the country.

On Feb. 28 more than 1,000 people joined the demonstration at Taco Bell headquarters.

The farm workers have targeted Taco Bell in hope that the fast-food chain can do what the coalition has been unable to do -- pressure Florida growers to raise pay rates for pickers.

"I'm feeling really good. The response from the students and the community of Irvine has been really good," Lucas Benitez, fasting farm worker and a founder of the Immokalee coalition, told The Los Angeles Times.

Damico said hunger and poor weather have impacted the protesters' spirit, leaving them cold and wet. The protesters kicked off the event last week, waving picket signs shaped like tomatoes and displaying banners with messages such as "Honk for a Living Wage."

"They'll get up every so often and do a little chanting: ''Boycott Taco Bell, Boycott Taco Bell,' " Damico said. "They'll hold some signs and hold a banner that says it's the seventh day of the hunger strike. But they're really exhausted, just physically wiped out at this point. So it's not like a high animation (with) people dancing around everywhere."

After a march outside the fast-food giant's headquarters last year, coalition representatives met with a company vice president, but no progress was made. They launched the national consumer boycott in 2001. They claim they have managed to get Taco Bell kicked off some college campuses.

Taco Bell says the dispute is between the workers and the growers. The growers, many of them in Florida, say foreign competition makes it impossible to pay more.

Damico said Ash Wednesday, March 5, would be a good time for Taco Bell officials to break their silence.

"I think it would be an appropriate time for Taco Bell to respond in some way, if they so chose," she said. "I'm continuing to pray that they will reach out and do some serious dialogue. Of course, as a Presbyterian Church we want to reach out to them and encourage them toward that."