Agricultural Workers Industrial Union 110

All workers on farms, ranches, orchards and plantations.

With Fewer Migrant Workers, Farmers Turn to Prison Labor

Posted Sat, 08/25/2007 - 11:32am by x344543

Disclaimer - The opinions of the author do not necessarily match those of the IWW.  This article is reposted in accordance to Fair Use guidelines. 

By Nicole Hill, Christian Science Monitor. Posted August 22, 2007.

Weren't employers who lose access to cheap foreign labor supposed to start paying Americans fair wages?

Picacho, Ariz. -- Near this dusty town in southeastern Arizona, Manuel Reyna pitches watermelons into the back of a trailer hitched to a tractor. His father was a migrant farm worker, but growing up, Mr. Reyna never saw himself following his father's footsteps. Now, as an inmate at the Picacho Prison Unit here, Reyna works under the blazing desert sun alongside Mexican farmers the way his father did.

Nyeri coffee farmers rage at Starbucks officials

Posted Sat, 12/09/2006 - 6:58pm by x344543

By Moses Njagih and agencies - The Standard, December 2, 2006.

Angry farmers from a coffee factory in Nyeri District have blasted officials of the Starbucks Coffee Company for refusing to respond to their questions on a project the multinational is undertaking in the area.

The American coffee retailer is involved in the Kenya Heartland Coffee project, to help farmers to improve the quality of their crop.

But during a visit by Starbuck officials, irate farmers of Kihuyo Coffee Factory accused Mr James Donald, the company’s president, of using them to rake in billions in profits. The American official had tough meetings with Ethiopian coffee growers earlier in the week.

Kihuyo and Kiamariga factories in Mathira division are involved in the Heartland project.

"Starbucks interests are only in making profits from our coffee, and yet they are not even mindful about our welfare," asked Mr John Kabira, a farmer.

Immokalee Workers Take Down Taco Bell

Posted Thu, 11/10/2005 - 2:19pm by x344543

Disclaimer - The following article is reposted here because it is an issue with some relevance to the IWW. The views of the author do not necessarily agree with those of the IWW and vice versa.

By Elly Leary - Monthly Review, October 2005

On March 8, 2005, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) in Immokalee, Florida won a significant victory. In a precedent-setting move, fast-food giant Yum! Brands Inc., the world’s largest restaurant corporation, agreed to all the farm workers’ demands (and more!) if the CIW would end the four-year-old boycott of its subsidiary Taco Bell. (Yum!, a spin off from Pepsi, includes Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken, A&W, Long John Silver’s, and Pizza Hut franchises.) As United Farm Workers (UFW) president Arturo Rodriguez commented at the victory celebration, “It is the most significant victory since the successful grape boycott led by the UFW in the 1960s in the fields of California.”

El Acuerdo/The Agreement