Day 5 protest at the University of Florida Burger King in Gainesville!
Tour Background: If it's Fall, it must be time for the CIW's annual "Mini-Tour," a Campaign for Fair Food tradition since 2001.
But we won't be heading across the country this year. No, the Mini-Tour isn't cancelled. Rather, the tradition lives on, but this time, we are taking the truth of farmworker poverty and exploitation behind fast-food profits to cities across our home state of Florida.
Why Florida? Because Florida is also Burger King's home state. And because the Edward R. Murrow classic expose of farm labor exploitation "Harvest of Shame" was filmed in Florida nearly fifty years ago, yet today federal prosecutors still call Florida "ground zero for modern-day slavery." And because for the fifty years in between, Burger King has bought untold millions of pounds of tomatoes from its Florida suppliers with hardly a hitch as headline after headline exposing that exploitation crossed the company's doorstep with the morning paper.
The unending exploitation of farmworkers is Florida's own "inconvenient truth." A truth to which Florida's most powerful citizens -- from the governor to the kings of agriculture and the fast-food giants they feed -- have turned a blind eye for far too long.
Today, however, in the wake of the Yum Brands and McDonald's agreements, we stand on the threshold of a more modern, more humane agricultural industry in Florida. Facing this historic opportunity, Burger King seems to have chosen business as usual over progress, continued exploitation over justice. It is time for Burger King to seize the moment and stand with Florida's tomato pickers in our fight for fundamental human rights in the fields. This tour is the first step in moving Burger King to embrace progress.
Join us for daily updates in the week ahead (9/29 - 10/7) as CIW members and their allies travel from Tampa to Tallahassee, Gainesville to Ft. Lauderdale, laying the groundwork for the November 30th March on Burger King in Miami.
Video by Harold Saive - Memeber of Veterans For Peace, Gainesville
