Leaders from the United Workers, leaders from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) and allies are days away from embarking on our week long Fair Food Solidarity Tour. The Fair Food Solidarity Tour will begin in Baltimore and cut up to Philadelphia before heading down to Immokalee, Florida, bringing visibility along the way to the injustices in the fields of Florida. We will be demonstrating solidarity with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Campaign for Fair Food and their ongoing effort to transform the food industry into an industry that respects the basic dignity of those who pick the food we find in restaurants, college campuses, and supermarkets. We will draw the connection of food industry injustice from the fields of Florida to those establishments, like the Inner Harbor, that profit off poverty wage labor.
We head out on Sunday, December 6 as CIW kicks off their Walk For Farmworker Justice, their biggest Publix protest of the year! To learn more about the CIW and the Walk For Farworker Justice, go to http://www.ciw-online.org/
With the Fair Food Solidarity Tour only days away, we are feverishly preparing. Below is a schedule of events and details about Aramark and Cordish actions on Monday in Philly. Keep posted as we update the Unity Blog daily from the road.
Fair Food Solidarity Tour Schedule
Sunday, Dec. 6- Saturday, Dec. 12
Day 1- Coming together
Low-wage workers and allies kick off the Fair Food Solidarity Tour with a dinner at Woodberry, a rural retreat space just outside of Baltimore. We will learn about the sweatshop conditions that farmworkers endure in Immokalee and the efforts and successes of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to demand fair working conditions and accountability from major corporate buyers. After dinner, we will gather around the campfire for smores and songs.
Day 2- Day of Action in Philly
We load into the vans to head to Philadelphia to meet up with CIW leaders at the office of the Media Mobilizing Project, a grassroots network focusing on media making and leadership development. http://mediamobilizing.org/. Then off we go to Aramark Headquarters!
2 PM- Rally at Aramark Headquarters
1101 Market St
CIW Leaders, the United Workers, Just Harvest, Student Farmworkers Alliance, and allies of the Fair Food Campaign call on Aramark to work with the CIW to ensure basic human rights for farmworkers in its supply chain.
4 PM- Rally at Philly Live!
Inner Harbor developer, Cordish, is repeating their poverty zone model in Philadelphia with Philly Live! Inner Harbor workers and allies are here to expose what Cordish’s business model has meant for workers in Baltimore through a theatrical illustration of the Inner Harbor profit chain.
Day 3- Reflection and Delegation to Ahold
After a day of action, we will spend a day reflecting and learning from each other through workshops on media production and theater workshops on the United Workers narrative. A delegation will head out to Ahold headquarters, parent company of Giant, to demand that they work with CIW to ensure fair pay for farmworkers and then drop by Goucher College to talk to students about the Campaign for Fair Food and the Human Rights Zone Campaign at the Inner Harbor.
Day 4- Head to CIW land!
Bright and early, we load into the vans and begin the long journey to southern Florida. Thankfully, the Arts & Culture Committee has put together fun and educational activities to pass the time, like our brand new United Workers Song Book. So, “People Get Ready!”
Day 5- Tour of Immokalee and theater workshops
CIW will lead us in a tour of Immokalee, home base for the CIW and “ground zero” for modern day slavery. After the tour, we will learn about how the CIW fundraised to build their own community center and their use of theater in their community organizing and actions in preparation for our participation play on Our Harbor Day, May 1, 2010.
Day 6- Farewell to our friends
Sadly all things must come to an end. But before we say our final goodbyes and head to cold cold Baltimore, we will take a trip to the beach. Can you blame us? And then back in the van again. Break out those United Workers song books.
Day 7- Back in B’more
Wew! Back in Baltimore…
