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Members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a Florida-based farm worker organization, will hold a cultural event and protest Sunday and Monday in Minneapolis.
On Sunday, March 19, they will participate in a program of music and poetry with local and national musicians and Las Palabristas, a Minneapolis-based collective of poets, spoken word artists and writers. The program runs from 6 to 8 p.m. at the headquarters of CTUL, 3715 Chicago Ave. S.
On Monday, March 20, coalition members will speak from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. in the Mississippi Room of Coffman Memorial Union on the east bank of the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota. Their presentation will be followed at 1 p.m. by a demonstration at the Wendy’s restaurant at 421 W. Broadway Ave., Minneapolis.
Billed as the “Return to Human Rights Tour,” the visit is part of a national effort to pressure Wendy’s to join the Fair Food Program, a partnership among farmers, farmworkers, and retail food companies that ensures humane wages and working conditions for the workers who pick fruits and vegetables on participating farms.
“Wendy’s has not only refused to join the Fair Food Program, but has stopped buying tomatoes from Florida since the implementation of the FFP there,” the Coalition states on its website. “Rather than support an industry setting new standards for human rights, Wendy’s took its tomato purchases to Mexico, where workers continue to confront wage theft, sexual harassment, child labor, and even slavery without access to protections.
“Wendy’s stands alone as the last of the five major fast food corporations in the country to refuse to join the FFP: McDonald’s, Burger King, Yum!Brands and Subway are all doing the right thing and participating in the Program.”