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November 3rd 2008—Coalition of Immokalee Workers—A Story of Exploitation, Disenfranchisement, and Triumph!

Posted byJacqui
About Jacqui

November 4, 2008

As I drove into Immokalee this afternoon, my first thought was how much it reminded me of towns in some of the countries I’ve visited in the Caribbean like in Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, etc. There was a look to the town and a rhythm to the movements of people walking up and down the streets, people riding about on bicycles, etc that was reminiscent to the feel of several of the towns I’ve visited.  As I got out of my car I enjoyed hearing the various accents and observing the interactions between friends and families who were around on the streets. However, the buildings, the types of businesses, the disrepair of the roads and other bits of infrastructure were indications of a town with significant economic strife.

Before the interviews started, Heather Vega, an intern at the Coalition of Immokalee Workers(CIW), shared a bit of the background of the town and of the Coalition. Housing conditions are that most of the men live in trailers that sleep between 10 and 12 people.

Immokalee is an agricultural town which is built around the industries of tomatoes and citrus. Immokalee has a population of 20,000 during the off-season and 40,000 when tomatoes are harvested, between late Oct/Early Nov and May. . The population is primarily from Mexico, Guatemala, and Haiti and is mostly male. (approximately 85-90%)

Some of the social issues that plague the community are poverty, alcoholism as well as domestic violence. In fact, according to Heather, on the previous Monday, a local shelter had led a march through town to protest the level of domestic violence. Another issue in the community is trafficking/forced labor that happens within the agricultural issue. To some extent there is also some concern about sex trade issues as there is a significant level of sex work that happens in the town.

People in the community who work on the farms have a fairly harsh existence. The work day starts finding the farm workers in parking lots at 4am awaiting buses from the tomato grower companies. The buses come and folks in the lots are selected (or not) and those selected take a drive that lasts up to two hours. Others return home and hope to be selected the next day.  The buses return in the evening at around 7am and less than eight hours later, folks are up again getting ready to go to the lot to hope for selection.  It leaves very little in the way of family life or any other existence besides working and sleeping.

 In 1993, workers on the Immokalee tomato farms started to convene and talk about the need to organize themselves. In 1996, CIW was established as a non-profit organization. www.ciw-online.org  CIW now has 4,000 members and 10 staff members. Since its inception Immokalee has been operating the “Campaign for Fair Food” which targeted Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Burger King, and Whole Foods, and more recently Chipotle and Subway. The campaign has 3 central demands: 1) Increase the amount that these companies pay for tomatoes to $.01 per pound. 2) Establish a code of conduct where the companies would sever the contracts of growers found guilty of abuses. 3) Ensure that CIW participates in the dialogue about policies and practices between purchasers and tomato companies.

CIW has also been engaged in dealing with the issue of modern day slavery.  In the past 10 years, the work of CIW has resulted in 7 convictions for trafficking.

After visiting Immokalee, Congressional Representative Bernie Sanders of Vermont made the grim statement, “In Immokalee exploitation and poverty are the norm and slavery is the extreme.”

I asked Heather what kind of voter outreach was happening in Immokalee. She stated that the only voter outreach that has been done in Immokalee ever was occurring presently and being led by the Obama campaign.  I spoke to Jonathan next door who was operating the campaign out of the Lutheran Church and he confirmed that there had never been any voter outreach there and that he had found a situation of significant disenfranchisement of this community. His work was daunting but in the time there their office managed to register thousands of new voters. One woman was 96 years old and had never voted in her life after having witnessed a lynching of a person who tried to vote.  After multiple visits and reassurance they managed to convince this woman to register and vote early.

I had good conversations with Sylvia Perez, Nelly Rodriguez, and Heather Vega. Their comments can be found on the WOCU You Tube Channel, www.youtube.com/womenofcolorunited

 

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