Farmworkers protest for end to ‘slavery in the fields,’ target Wendy’s chairman – Palm Beach Post

PALM BEACH Calls for solidarity echoed through Palm Beach and downtown West Palm Beach on Saturday afternoon as about 400farmworkers and supporters marched to call attention to what they say are unfair and exploitative working conditions perpetuated by Wendy's.

The five-mile March to End Modern Slavery in the Fields" kicked off Saturday at about 1:15 p.m. as farmworkers withthe Coalition of Immokalee Workerscalled on the fast-food restaurant chain to join the Fair Food Program.

The program targets assault, verbal and physical abuse, wage theft and the mistreatment of farm workers nationwide.

"It's about justice," Toms Terraza, a 43-year-oldfarmworker who livesnear Homestead, said in Spanish. "We're fighting for our basic rights in the fields, inconstruction, in roofing and in many different job fields."

Terraza said all workers need access to legal resources if their rights are violated at work. Hot weather, inadequate access to clean drinking water and few rest periods make farm work dangerous, he said.

The march targeted Wendy's Board Chairman Nelson Peltz, who lives in Palm Beach. Organizers said they hope toput pressure on Wendy's top decision-maker to start conversations on their concerns about working conditions.

As the United States gets warmer, outdoor workers and farmworkers are at increased risk for heat-related injuries and death.

Though heat-related injuries are hard to track and likely undercounted, excessive heat seriously injured nearly 70,000 U.S. workers and killed 783 peoplebetween 1992 and 2016, per federal data gatheredby the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, PBS News Hour reported last August.

"They must listen to us,"Terraza said of Wendy's and other food companies. "They have to recognize and uphold human rights."

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Lack of care and resources for workers tasked with harvesting the nation's food leads to exploitation, organizer Gerardo Rayes-Chvez said.

"Since I was a kid I've been working in the fields," Rayes-Chvez said of his 14 seasons picking oranges, tomatoes and watermelon. "Now I'morganizing people in the fields ... the dignity of workers is at stake here."

The Fair Food Program is an antidote to exploitation, according to Reyes-Chvez.

McDonalds, Burger King, Subway, Yum! Brandsand Chipotle, as well as major grocers and food service companies such as Whole Foods, Walmart, Aramark and Compass, have joined the Fair Food Program,the coalition said.

Saturday's march garnered support from farmworkers around Florida and as far away as Minnesota and Vermont. Attendees wore T-shirts that identified them with worker's groups that read "We Count!" and "Justice for Farmworkers," and "Worker Power. Tenant Power. People Power."

Poetry, music, call-and-response, and a theatre-like performance called on marchers to demand change from U.S.-based fast food and chain restaurants.

In the case of Wendy's, aspokeswomantold the Palm Beach Daily News and Palm Beach Post on Thursday that the company sourcesfood such as tomatoes"exclusively from indoor, hydroponic greenhouse farms," while the Fair Food Program operates in outdoortomato growing and harvesting environments.

"The idea that joining the Fair Food Program, and purchasing field-grown, commodity tomatoes, is the only way that Wendys can demonstrate responsibility in our supply chain is not true," spokeswomanHeidiSchauer wrote in a statement to the newspapers.

The organization saidKerry Kennedy, an attorney who is the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Skakel Kennedy, andArchbishop of Miami Thomas Wenski participated in the march.

Other members of the South Florida faith community supported the mission Saturday.

Kim Roblez, the 40-year-old pastor of Miami Shores Presbyterian Church, brought a group of congregants to the march to show solidarity with farmworkers.

"We're coming because we believe that Jesus was one that always stood with the oppressed and marginalized and it's our call to do the same," she said. "I would like to see the entire industry change so we don't have any more abuses in the fields."

Speakers and poets at Saturday's rally shared testimonials from farmworkers that included people being injured on the job, not having access to clean water to drink while working, and being sexually harassed and at times assaulted while working on farms.

Rayes-Chvez, who lives in Immokalee, said the Fair Food Program allows workers the right to complain about working conditions without fear of retaliation, the right to be parts of health and safety committees and frequent assessments of working conditions.

"We need to work free of abuses that include modern-day slavery. That is a serial killer as well as sexual assault and child labor. We need zero tolerance," he said.

The 2016 march generated controversy because of geographiclimits Palm Beachhadset on the march. In the end, about 500 people protested through town streets on March 12, 2016, and the town later paid more than $160,000 in attorneys' fees and costs after a federal lawsuit filed by the march organizers.

kkokal@pbpost.com

@katikokal

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Farmworkers protest for end to 'slavery in the fields,' target Wendy's chairman - Palm Beach Post