Photo by Cindy Skop, Lakeland Ledger.
Today is a special day for the United Workers. It’s Human Rights Day and we’re in Immokalee Florida to stand in solidarity with farm workers who are fighting for economic justice, freedom from poverty and an end to slavery in the fields. Be sure to read more about the CIW’s latest campaigns and their longstanding struggle for fair food and farm worker justice.
Yesterday we were on the road for over 18 hours, making a stop along our route of the Fair Food Solidarity Tour to protest outside of a Publix grocery store in South Carolina. The protest was a welcome break from a long day of driving. Since Sunday we’ve protested at Aramark, participated in a delegation to Giant, met with MMP leaders and protested at a Cordish property in Philadelphia. We are now in Immokalee, to see first hand the struggle taking place here and to stand with the farm workers fighting for justice as members and leaders of the CIW.
Today we will send a letter to the developers who control the Inner Harbor - Cordish and GGP - restating our Human Rights Zone demands and outlining the economic human rights violations taking place at their developments. We will also tour the community of Immokalee, including the CIW’s community center. This part of the trip is being coordinated by the committee that’s planning to start raising funds from our membership base to build our own human rights and community center in Baltimore. We’ll also take part in workshops on how the CIW uses theater and storytelling to effectively communicate and build power.
We have been busy, and have many more things to do to stand in solidarity, share lessons learned, build connections and be united with the farm workers of Florda. This trip is first about building solidarity, which we express in action. But solidarity is more than protesting together, or speaking out on behalf of each other’s immediate issues and struggles.
We not only stand in solidarity with the members of the CIW, but also are thankful for their leadership and longstanding solidarity with the United Workers. This is how a movement gets built, by people working together and making connections across regions, workplaces and issues. The CIW is fighting for fair food. We are fighting for fair development. But what were are both really fighting for is respect and dignity, for life to be treated as sacred, and for workers to have the power required to ensure that the world is a just place for everyone.
Solidarity is a mindset and a value based on the belief that everyone is inherently worthy of dignity and respect. We are all human, and that is what binds us together and obligates us to struggle together for our shared respect and dignity. The specific context of our struggles differ, and we benefit strategically by fighting locally and building strong local organizations. But the ultimate struggle is the same, whether we are taxi drivers, domestic workers, students, media mobilizers, restaurant workers, child care workers, day laborers, stadium cleaners, retail workers or farm workers. This tour is about being human together, coming together in the only way possible if we are to be truly human. It about signing together, conversing together, joking and laughing, standing up together and joining in solidarity together.
We will join in more Publix actions before heading back to Baltimore at the end of the week. But our solidarity with the CIW will not end with the Fair Food Solidarity Tour. We are deeply committed to the struggle here, and will do as the CIW ask to the extent possible given our resources. We will ask nothing in return, becuase solidarity is a commitment to values, it the only way to build a movement and the only way to express our shared humanity and common struggles for justice.
