AR: 14
Title: Calling on the Texas Union and Aramark to promptly discontinue business relations with Taco Bell on account of its use of sweatshop labor and refusal to prove that its tomatoes are not derived from modern-day slave labor
Stage: IN SESSION – 10/03/2003
Owner: Jordan Buckley
Whereas Dr. Kevin Bales, United Nations consultant on slavery and human trafficking, estimates “There are between 100,000 and 150,000 slaves today in the U.S.” (National Geographic, September 2003); Whereas Dr. Bales states in Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy:
…[W]hat I am talking about is slavery: the total control of one person by another for the purpose of economic exploitation. Modern slavery hides behind different masks, using clever lawyers and legal smokescreens, but when we strip away the lies, we find someone controlled by violence and denied all of their personal freedom to make money for someone else (p. 6).
Whereas Dr. Bales reports on his website, www.freetheslaves.net:
If you insist on defining slavery as “the legal ownership of one person by another” then slavery has pretty much disappeared. But the key to slavery is not ownership, but control through violence…Couple that with economic exploitation in which someone is paid nothing and you have a good working definition of the new slavery that encompasses about 27 million people around the world;
Whereas “Slavery still flourishes in Florida’s fields because it solves basic problems for agribusiness. The farms, many of them owned by large corporations, contract with independent labor contractors who, for a flat fee, supply labor and provide farm workers with housing” (The Miami Herald, August 11, 2002);
Whereas “Sweatshop conditions in the fields are almost inevitable, since the corporations that buy the crops have the power to keep the prices they pay low, thus ensuring that wages paid by harvesting companies to pickers stay low too” (National Geographic, September 2003);
Whereas “[T]he production and distribution of South Florida’s tomato crop has become increasingly concentrated. A handful of private firms…supply millions of pounds of tomatoes, either directly or indirectly, to supermarkets and corporations… [F]ive of South Florida’s six recent slavery cases involve workers picking tomatoes or citrus. Taco Bell buys millions of pounds of tomatoes each year through local packing companies” (New Yorker, April 21 & 28, 2003);
Whereas Leon Rodriguez, former prosecutor with the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights division, stated, “What you get with agriculture is a pattern of exploitation that can be understood only as a system of human-rights abuses.” (New Yorker, April 21 & 28, 2003);
Whereas An anonymous Justice Department official reported that South Florida is “ground zero for modern slavery.” (New Yorker, April 21 & 28, 2003);
Whereas “Over the past five years, U.S. Justice Department officials have successfully prosecuted five slavery rings operating in the fields of South Florida. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the organization spearheading the Taco Bell boycott, was instrumental in the discovery, investigation and prosecution of four of those cases. Three of the cases involved tomato pickers in the Immokalee area, the heart of Florida’s $600 million tomato industry” (Palm Beach Post, March 30, 2003);
Whereas “Immokalee’s tomato pickers are paid as little as forty cents per bucket. A filled bucket weighs thirty-two pounds. To earn fifty dollars in a day, an Immokalee picker must harvest two tons of tomatoes, or a hundred and twenty-five buckets.” (New Yorker, April 21 & 28, 2003);
Whereas According to the US Department of Labor, in the past two decades farm receipts from fruit and vegetable sales have nearly doubled. Between 1989 and 1998, however, wages paid to farm workers declined…The national median annual income for farm workers is $7500. A University of Florida survey found that the average income for Immokalee farm workers is even lower—in 1998, just $6,574. (New Yorker, April 21 & 28, 2003);
Whereas The Coalition of Immokalee Workers exposed five cases of agricultural slavery in central Florida in the past six years (National Geographic, September 2003);
Whereas In April 2001, members of CIW helped four slaves escape from a well-guarded labor camp in Lake Placid, Florida. In June 2002, the operators of the camp were convicted on felony charges of slave trafficking, extortion, and possession of firearms and received prison sentences totaling 34 years and 9 months (National Geographic, September 2003);
Whereas Judge K. Michael Moore, who sentenced the slave camp operators, stated “…[O]thers at a higher level of the fruit picking industry seem complicit in one way or another with how these activities occur.” (New Yorker, April 21 & 28, 2003);
Whereas Lucas Benitez, co-founder of the Coalition of the Immokalee Workers, explains: We have investigated cases where people have been pistol-whipped, held at gunpoint, beaten and told they would have their tongues cut out if they talked to the authorities. Of course, that’s the extreme of exploitation in the fields, but sweatshop conditions—sub-poverty wages, no right to organize, no right to overtime pay, no health insurance, no benefits at all—are our everyday reality. And yet Taco Bell treats us as if we had nothing whatsoever to do with their industry…Taco Bell has a policy that it will not buy food from contractors that mistreat animals. All we are asking is that they have the same policy for humans (Palm Beach Post, March 30, 2003);
Whereas In response to the Coalition of Immokalee Worker’s ten day hunger strike in front of the Taco Bell Headquarters, Archbishop Roger Mahoney of Los Angeles, leader of the country’s largest Catholic community, endorsed the boycott, saying, “In turn, I encourage Catholics to stand with you by fasting during lent and in prayer that you soon see a successful conclusion to this campaign” (Naples Daily News, March 10, 2003);
Whereas The Coalition of Immokalee Workers web site states: CIW believes that the ultimate solution to modern-day slavery in agribusiness lies on the “demand side” of the US produce market—the major food-buying corporations, like Taco Bell, that profit from the artificially-low cost of US produce picked by workers in sweatshop and, in the worst cases, slavery conditions. With this in mind, the Anti-Slavery Campaign works hand in hand with the CIW’s national Taco Bell Boycott in an effort to leverage the fast-food industry’s vast resources and market influence as major produce buyers to clean up slavery and other labor abuses in its supply chain once and for all.
Whereas In 2002, Taco Bell generated $5.2 billion in system-wide sales (Los Angeles Times, July 21, 2003);
Whereas According to its contract with the Texas Union, Aramark determines which restaurants operate within the Texas Union;
Whereas Dr. Bales writes in Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy:
In the past, slavery entailed one person legally owning another person, but modern slavery is different. Today slavery is illegal everywhere, and there is no more legal ownership of human beings. When people buy slaves today, they don’t ask for a receipt or ownership papers, but they do gain control—and they use violence to maintain this control. Slaveholders have all of the benefits of ownership without the legalities, indeed for the slaveholders, not having legal ownership is an improvement because they get total control without any responsibility for what they own. For that reason, I tend to use the term slaveholder instead of slaveowner (p. 5);
Whereas Taco Bell denies responsibility for the sweatshop and slave labor in its tomato supply chain.
According to Jonathan Blum, vice-president for public relations of YUM, the parent of Taco Bell, the company does not divulge the names of its suppliers, and has refused requests from the coalition for help in negotiating with local growers for better pay and conditions. “It’s a labor dispute between a company that is unrelated to Taco Bell and its workers,” Blum told me. “We don’t believe it’s our place to get involved in another company’s labor dispute involving its employees.” As for the relation between slavery in South Florida and his company’s chalupas, Bum said, “My gosh, I’m sorry, it’s heinous, but I don’t think it has anything to do with us.”(New Yorker, April 21 & 28, 2003);
Whereas The Student-Farmworker Alliance, a national network encompassing 300 universities and 50 high schools, has acted in solidarity with CIW and successfully ousted or prevented 17 Taco Bell restaurants from high school and university campuses throughout the U.S;
Whereas Taco Bell operates within the Texas Union, thus financially linking the University and much of its community to a company that allows for the unethical and immoral use of modern-day slave and sweatshop labor;
Whereas The University of Texas System mission statement establishes that “The University of Texas System seeks…to cultivate in students the ethical or moral values that are the basis of a humane social order;”
Be It Resolved that the Student Government of the University of Texas at Austin is outraged at the illegal use of slave labor within the United States, and so calls upon the Texas Union to disassociate itself from human bondage, sweatshop labor and exploitation by canceling its contract with Taco Bell;
Be It Further Resolved that the Student Government of the University of Texas at Austin conveys appreciation and support to those individuals employed by Taco Bell in the Texas Union and advocates that, if at all possible, they maintain their previous positions but work for the new restaurant that replaces Taco Bell;
Be It Further Resolved that the Student Government of the University of Texas at Austin respectfully asks that UT President Larry Faulkner and the Texas Union Board advocate for the immediate cancellation of the Texas Union’s contract with Taco Bell until Taco Bell takes the necessary steps to ensure that none of its products are derived from modern-day slavery or sweatshop labor;
Be It Further Resolved the Student Government calls upon Aramark to replace Taco Bell in the Texas Union with a local taqueria offering similar food at comparable prices.
Be It Further Resolved that the Student Government of the University of Texas at Austin recognizes the courage of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and pledges solidarity to those facing modern-day slavery or sweatshop labor.
——————————————————————————–
Footnotes
None
Comments
None
Authors: Sean Sellers (Campus Greens), Jordan Buckley (Campus Greens & Two Year at Large Representative), Brent Perdue (Campus Greens & Liberal Arts Representative), Andrew Dobbs (Student Services Committee Chair)
Sponsors: Jordan Buckley (Two Year at Large Representative), Brent Perdue (Liberal Arts Representative), Paul Navratil (Graduate Representative), Rebecca Emmons (Architecture Representative)