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Posted by Barry on March 2, 2011
My protest marching skills are a bit rusty, having last been put to use in 1968 on behalf of Eugene McCarthy and his thwarted bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. But on a bitter afternoon in Boston recently, I sloshed through a few inches of slushy snow with more than 900 supporters of the Coalition [...]
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Tags: Ahold, Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Giant, Publix, Stop and Shop, tomatoes, Trader Joe's
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Posted by Barry on February 25, 2011
Jose Hilario, a 48-year-old native of Guerrero, Mexico, came to the United States hoping to find work in the tomato fields that surround the town of Immokalee in southwestern Florida. He wanted to send money home for his sister’s children’s schooling. Instead, he found himself enslaved—literally. For two years he was forced to toil for [...]
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Posted by Barry on November 16, 2010
Thanks! One penny a pound might not seem like much of a raise, but when you pick a ton of tomatoes a day, as a Florida farm worker can, one penny represents a raise from $50 and $70, the difference between poverty and a livable (though still paltry) wage. And it doesn’t seem radical to suggest [...]
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Posted by Barry on October 25, 2010
Just a little over a week after Pacific Tomato Growers, one of the top five tomato producers in Florida, came aboard the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Fair Food effort (see previous post), the state’s largest producer has followed suit. Here is the press release: With the the 2010 tomato season just around the corner, momentum [...]
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Posted by Barry on October 18, 2010
Coalition of Immokalee Workers Photograph A few months ago, I attended an amateur boxing match in Immokalee, Fla., an agricultural community in the southwestern part of the state. It didn’t look like it was going to be a fair fight. In one corner was a strapping fellow in his late teens or early 20s. [...]
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| Tags: Coalition of Immokalee Workers, tomatoes
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Posted by Barry on July 21, 2010
Fresh from stops in Washington, D. C., on the National Mall and at the State Department, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ well-traveled Modern-Day Slavery Museum is heading up the eastern seaboard. Centered around a tomato truck nearly identical to one in which slaves were locked at night in 2008 case, it will be visiting Baltimore, [...]
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| Tags: Farm Labor, Slavery Coalition of Immokalee Workers
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Posted by Barry on May 4, 2010
Thanks, Ruth, Doc, Rux, and you, too, Jim Driving from Naples, Florida, the nation’s second-wealthiest metropolitan area, to Immokalee takes less than an hour on a straight road. You pass houses that sell for an average of $1.4 million, shopping malls anchored by Tiffany’s and Saks Fifth Avenue, manicured golf courses. Eventually, gated communities [...]
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Posted by Barry on April 1, 2010
Chalk up another one for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), the Florida-based community organization that has been trying for decades to improve the grim lot of migrant tomato pickers, most of whom toil for less than minimum wage. This week, ARAMARK, the giant corporation that supplies food to universities, hospitals, stadiums, and other institutions [...]
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| Tags: ARAMARK, Coalition of Immokalee Workers, farmworkers, Publix
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Posted by Barry on February 26, 2010
With faux jungles full of parrots, pods of under-water-ballet-performing mermaids, and parks cashing in on every conceivable theme, it would seem that the last thing Florida needs is yet another “attraction.” But if you’re in the Sunshine State during the next six weeks, I strongly urge you to visit the new Florida Modern-Day Slavery Museum. [...]
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| Tags: Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Florida, Florida Modern-Day Slavery Museum, Slavery
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Posted by Barry on January 13, 2010
Photograph by Scott Robertson courtesey of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers Following this week’s prolonged cold snap in Florida, news reports bemoaned the prospect of higher prices for orange juice and crops such as strawberries, citrus, and tomatoes. The state’s governor (and United States Senate hopeful) Charlie Christ promptly issued an executive order to [...]
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| Tags: Coalition of Immokalee Workers, farm workers, tomatoes
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