From the Rural Fields to the Urban Developers: CIW and UWA Protest Aramark and Comcast

Farm workers and service workers on Fair Food Solidarity Tour targeting Aramark and Philly Live today in Philadelphia. Check the schedule and read more after the break.

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What is the cost of tomatoes? For the women and men who work the fields of  Immokalee, Florida the cost too often is a modern day slavery. Since the days of slavery in this country farm workers and domestic work have gone as the two industries unprotected by labor laws. But also in Immokalee Florida, the farmworkers who pick the majority of tomatoes we eat in our country have been on the move, one corporate purchaser after another, demanding an end to the slavery in the fields and a better life through a higher wage. From Taco Bell, to Burger King, to McDonalds, and Whole Foods the Coalition of Immokalee Workers have been organizing and winning victory towards the end of modern day slavery in the fields.

What is the cost of development? With every new development that promises jobs and opportunities for workers all too often the return is the abuse of poverty wages, lack of healthcare, long hours, and indignity in the work place. In the Inner Harbor of Baltimore, the cities recreation and entertainment center, the workers who cook and serve the food are declaring the harbor an Human Rights Zone and demanding that their labor is treated with dignity, a living wage, health care, and education. Baltmore's United Workers have fought the indignity in other city centers, most notable Camden Yards Stadium and the workers won their demands.

Today, in Philadelphia we will see that Immokalee, Florida and Baltimore, Maryland are not far from our home. Media Mobilizing Project will host the Coalition of Immokalee Worker and the United Workers Association, as a part of their Fair Food Solidarity Tour.

They are connecting their struggles to the struggles here. The tour will stop at Aramark and Philly Live - a corporate tomato purchaser and a planned entertainment and recreation development that have continued the exploitation of workers in our own city. Aramark is not only one of the largest purchasers of tomatoes as a part of their catering services, but also one of Philadelphia's top employers. While a recent listing in Philadelphia Magazine (print edition) commented on Aramark's philanthropic practices the company has refused to sit down with the farm workers from Immokalee and are known for paying poverty wages in the service industry. Philly Live is a planned partnership between Cordish and Comcast. Comcast recently began an attempt to block internet access to low-income people in communities across the country. Cordish, is a developer of complexes in the Inner Harbor and one of the main targets of the United Workers.

The Fair Food Solidarity Tour will stop today in Philadelphia and move on to Baltimore and Immokolee where 500 farm workers recently protested Publix chain grocery stores for the human rights abuses of their suppliers.

Check back here throughout the week for updates from the tour.

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