Students are often insulated from a lot of issues outside of Gainesville. Tomorrow at 7:30 p.m., you have an opportunity to affect the lives of a tremendous number of farm workers.
During the off-season, about 90 percent of tomatoes bought in the U.S. come from Florida, particularly the fields in a town called Immokalee. Among the companies that get tomatoes from Florida is our monopolistic campus food service provider, Aramark Corp.
Tomato pickers in Immokalee are subjected to labor conditions on par with many third-world countries. Over the course of a 12-hour work day, an Immokalee farm worker has to pick between 2 and 2 1/2 tons of tomatoes to make Florida minimum wage.
Worst of all, since 1997 there have been seven convicted cases of slavery involving more than 1,000 Immokalee farm workers, the most recent of which happened less than a year ago.
This past Saturday, I was joined by more than 130 students, faculty, activists and Immokalee farm workers in demanding that Aramark negotiate with their representative organization, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. Right now, Subway, McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell and several other corporations have agreed to directly pay a penny more per pound of tomatoes picked to the farm workers. The coalition is calling on Aramark to do the same thing.
Because every dining option on campus is owned by Aramark, any student who has eaten on campus has a moral imperative to assist the coalition in its struggle for justice in Immokalee. Student Senate heard a resolution in support of the CIW last month that a majority of Senators from all three parties voted for. In a bizarre turn of events, the resolution didn't pass because it needed a two-thirds majority.
This Tuesday, Senate is hearing the same resolution again. Based on the enormous amount of support on Saturday, I'm not alone in demanding that Senate vote overwhelmingly to demand that Aramark negotiate with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to bring an end to the abuses and exploitation in Immokalee.
Come out at 7:30 p.m. to Reitz Union Room 282 and tell Senate that you stand with the Immokalee workers and that you won't tolerate these human rights abuses any longer.
Dave Schneider is the Progress Party president.
