“It is our hope that today's farmworker movement will serve as one of many points on the horizon that inspires young people to believe in the possibility of a better world – a world where we all have space to realize our dreams."
- Gerardo Reyes Chávez, CIW

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Dine with Dignity Week of Action
October 5-9, 2009


The Dine with Dignity week of action was a great success, as students across the country organized actions, presentations (like the one above in Madison, WI) and other educational events to call on Aramark and Sodexo to end the 'harvest of shame!'

In Texas, a delegation of Fair Food Austin members and University of Texas students delivered a letter calling on Aramark to step up and enter into an agreement with the CIW to UT-Austin's Aramark representative, pictured above.

The response from Aramark? A PR statement (that we've seen before) claiming, among other things, that the company has already met with the CIW to address the issue. Really?

Fair Food Austin sets the record straight: "According to the CIW, however, no negotiations are currently underway. In fact, Aramark has yet to contact the CIW since the launch of the Dine With Dignity campaign six months ago. And in light of the Fair Food agreements between the CIW and seven multibillion-dollar, multinational food retailers, Aramark's excuse of supply chain opacity arrives dead on arrival in 2009."

More from Austin:


Elsewhere, students of all ages were working on the "consciousness" part of the CIW's "C+C=C" (consciousness + commitment = change) equation, from this group of Madison high-schoolers learning exactly how much 32 pounds of tomatoes really weighs...


...to these members of Wichita State University's Young Democratic Socialists chapter, who organized a "tomato challenge" in their student union to educate their peers about Sodexo's role in perpetuating the exploitation of farmworkers and gathered over 1,000 signatures to a petition urging Sodexo to work with the CIW (including nearly 400 in one 1.5 hour blitz)...

...to this SFAer being interviewed about UC-Davis's Sodexo campaign on Local Dirt radio. Click here listen to the interview in its entirety! (It begins approximately 32 minutes into the show.)

In Houston, University of Houston Students for Fair Trade laid the groundwork for an upcoming visit from CIW and SFA organizers with this rally and a petition to Aramark...


...and in Las Vegas on the UNLV campus, SFA and CIW representatives spoke with members of MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano/a de Aztlán) at their annual liaison, and gathered outside afterwards for this photo demonstrating their solidarity with farmworkers in Immokalee.

For years, MEChA has been an invaluable ally in the Campaign for Fair Food, and that continues to hold true through the Dine with Dignity campaign. MECHistas at Denver's Auraria campus (home to the Community College of Denver, the Metropolitan College of Denver and the University of Colorado, Denver) and at the University of Colorado, Boulder sent letters calling on Sodexo to "take a leadership role in ending sub-poverty wages, forced labor, and other human rights violations endured by Florida tomato pickers"

Solidarity letters were also sent by members of Denver Fair Food and students at nearby Regis University.


Of course, even with this week of action in the books, there's still lots to be done! (And this adorable tiny MEChista attending a presentation at Michigan State University is ready to get started!)

Take action today by clicking here to send an email and fax to Aramark and Sodexo's corporate executives, keep up the great on-campus organizing, and stay tuned for more information as SFA's fall semester of action continues!

 

PO Box 603, Immokalee, FL 34143 :: (239) 657-8311 :: organize (at) sfalliance.org