REV. NOELLE DAMICO
A Christian Space to Meet
A point of encounter between farmworkers, fast food companies, and the church

As you read this article farmworkers harvesting tomatoes in Florida for suppliers of the fast food industry are earning 45 cents for every 32 pound bucket they pick. That means they need to pick 2 tons of tomatoes to earn $50. Just last month the U.S. Department of Justice successfully prosecuted another case of slavery in the agricultural industry. In this case homeless men were recruited into forced labor with the promise of food and a roof over their head. The labor camp owners used crack and alcohol to keep the addicted men in debt (which they were never able to work off through their labor) and kept the workers "in line" by having guards patrol the grounds with machetes and guns.

The tomatoes that are harvested by exploited workers supply the retail food industry; fast-food restaurants and groceries that demand high volumes at the lowest possible prices, squeezing their suppliers who, in turn, maintain their profit margins by holding down the cost of the one input that has the least power to negotiate its price: labor.

So while the fast food industry continues to boom, bringing in record profits as consumers hunger for cheap food on the fly, farmworkers laboring at the base of the supply chains of these corporate giants, are exploited and in some cases enslaved.

But God’s great promise to us through Scripture is that "it could be otherwise!"

When considering our food system, and current practices of production and procurement within the retail food and agricultural industries in particular, there is much to lament. But there is also much to give hope.

In March of 2005, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, an organization of Florida farmworkers who harvest tomatoes for the retail food (fast food and grocery) industry achieved a groundbreaking agreement with Yum! Brands, the largest fast food company in the world, that has significantly increased farmworkers’ wages and is charting a new course in enforcing just working conditions by involving farmworkers in the enforcement of their own human rights in the fields of the company’s suppliers.

This agreement did not just materialize from thin air overnight. It happened because the Coalition of Immokalee Workers made partnerships with institutions and leaders from the religious, human rights, student and international communities that pressured Yum! Brands for four years through a consumer boycott of Taco Bell. Since the March 2005 victory, CIW and its allies have turned our sites toward McDonald’s, Chipotle and other fast food companies, asking them to work with the CIW to advance the precedents achieved with Yum! Brands, within their own supply chains. You can read more about the boycott and the current Campaign for Fair Food in Kathleen Wood’s article in this issue (p.13).

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is one of the many religious bodies that has become an ally with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in their struggle for human rights and fair food. And our partnership with the CIW has not only helped initiate the first steps in transforming the agri-food industry, our partnership has also compelled the church to reexamine our understanding of charity, stewardship and discernment. This article recounts some of the ways in which our partnership with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has challenged and freed the church for vibrant and fresh ministries of social transformation.

The struggle of CIW for fair wages and human rights in the fields first came to the Presbyterian Church through local congregations who regularly offered food and clothing to the workers. Of course most of us are familiar with the need to supplement charitable efforts with systemic efforts to live justly with neighbors both near and far. But the Immokalee farmworkers helped us understand that charitable giving, is not always or only benign.

While the farmworkers from Immokalee were and are grateful for charitable donations of food and clothing by Presbyterians, they stirred congregations to ask "why should farmworkers who work ten to twelve hours a day, six and sometimes seven days a week, need donations of food and clothing? Why can’t farmworkers live in dignity and obtain food and clothing for themselves and their families?" Because CIW did not simply silently receive the charitable donations but they engaged the congregations as equals, many congregations came to understand that these well-intentioned donations are not only helping the workers; they also function as subsidies to the growers who are underpaying the workers. This honesty about how our charity is functioning is important if we are to correctly analyze why farmworker poverty continues despite decades of charitable giving. So while we keep the assistance coming we understand it as something needed for our sisters and brothers to survive – and something, that if it stands alone, actually mitigates against changing the conditions that make farmworkers poor. So while donations continued, local congregations were ready to look at what it would mean to stand side by side with the workers. After years of marches with the workers in which we called on growers to increase wages to little avail, we realized that the power and resources to change these conditions lay at the top of the supply chain with the powerful retail food corporations who purchased the tomatoes workers picked and who benefited from farmworker poverty. In 2001 the workers called for a boycott of Taco Bell, one of the fast food companies buying tomatoes, and in 2002 the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted to support the boycott.

Together with their partners, the CIW did careful study and thoughtful, nonviolent, public action: marches, hunger strikes, days of public prayer, letter-writing, public statements and protests to develop public awareness and pressure for change. Presbyterians across the country took the risk of standing up publicly with the workers for human rights especially when that meant dealing with the pressure of media, police, corporate representatives, and opinions of neighbors in their own community. Presbyterians got out of their "comfort zone" in order to become the change they wanted to see in the world.

As the PC(USA) in all its settings began to support the boycott we had the idea that we were lending the power we have as a respected institution and the social power many of us wield as individuals to some of the poorest people in our country. And in one sense, that’s a very accurate description of what we did. But the CIW asked us to go further. The Coalition asked the PC(USA) to think about how this campaign for fair food was also about us – about our choices as consumers who purchase these products. We were asked to think about how the things that the farmworkers lacked were things that every human being needs: a job at a living wage, fair treatment in the workplace, safe housing, health care. The farmworkers were in the forefront of this particular struggle to address wages and working conditions, but they reminded us that it is part of a larger global struggle for human rights in which we are all invited to locate ourselves and to act.

And from this challenge, the church began to move from a position of being an "outsider" that rushed to the support of farmworkers and their struggle, to being a leader with farmworkers in a common struggle for a food system that provides well-being for all. As we made this shift in our partnership work with the farmworkers (and with other allies like student, human rights, and international organizations), we began to describe our work not so much as "advocacy" but as an exercise in "stewardship" and "discernment."

Created in God’s image, the Divine has appointed us stewards of creation which includes our economic life. Such stewardship involves discernment and decision-making such that our words and actions reflect our belief in God’s sovereignty and good purpose for creation. We reached into the historic teachings of the Presbyterian Church and were reminded that, "God alone is to be obeyed. Christians are first to ask of the economic system not whether it is most efficient or productive of economic goods, as important as that is, but how it reflects the purpose of God for creation" (Christian Faith and Economic Justice, PC(USA), 1984, 29.081).

The idea that God is sovereign over our economic system was absolutely essential to our ability to work for the transformation of the food system – rather than just tinker around with small changes or resort back to charitable efforts. When nay-sayers insisted that we couldn’t possibly change how corporations purchased, that the system was too vast or that any little change would have gigantic, negative consequences, we insisted that God did not intend for our systems of commerce to exploit people. We insisted that as stewards of creation we had a responsibility to ensure that our purchasing did not harm human beings. Together with CIW and other allies we demanded that those who are profiting from exploitation have a moral and ethical responsibility to end that exploitation. And we argued publicly that "lowest cost" was not the only value consumers were looking for in their food. Through our decision to refrain from patronizing Taco Bell, we demonstrated that the promotion of human rights in the company’s supply chain was valued by a vocal and growing segment of Taco Bell’s customers.

When the PC(USA)’s General Assembly voted to support the Taco Bell boycott, it was the first time since 1978 that the church had boycotted. This meant that we needed to do extensive education in our congregations about the history of the church’s support for boycotts as well as how supporting a boycott could be a part of a Christian witness for a more just world. Sometimes people would say, "but a boycott is so negative. Why isn’t the church doing something more positive?" Well certainly by supporting the boycott, the PC(USA) was saying "no" to patronizing a company whose practices exploited. But we weren’t just saying "no." That "no" was grounded in a larger "yes" to fostering forms of business that respect human rights.

The practice of saying "yes" and saying "no" is one of discernment. And it requires study, reflection, prayer and courage. It is very easy to be "for" fair wages for farmworkers, but if we are not willing to name and to say "no" to those practices that actually suppress workers’ wages (such as the artificially low cost of produce demanded by fast food companies because of their high volume purchasing), then we are not telling the whole truth. Sometimes the church wants so badly to bring "good news" that we are ready to affirm anything that sounds positive. And this is dangerous and tempting.

For example, during the boycott Taco Bell offered to pay money to the CIW to distribute to farmworkers. But this initiative would not have changed relationships within their supply chain at all. The company would not be held responsible for how its procurement depressed workers’ wages and its suppliers would not be accountable to the company and the workers for exploitative conditions in the fields. Workers would still receive the same poverty wage and the imbalance of power between workers and growers would remain unchanged. Essentially the system would stay in tact, while the company’s money might help farmworkers be a little more comfortable in their poverty. That’s why CIW and its allies including the PC(USA) rejected this approach. Saying "no" to this overture from the company was extremely important. It caused the company to realize that charity was not what we were after and that it would not repair the damage that their regular purchasing practices were doing. By saying "no" one path was closed off, but another path, one that accomplished the goals of the farmworkers and changed the company’s procurement practices was opened. Saying "no" is an important component of saying "yes."

Jesus warned his disciples, "Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves." This instruction was to guide his followers as they went into different towns to heal and cast out demons; towns that may or may not welcome them. Discernment, saying "yes" and saying "no," is a part of reconciliation, a part of healing. It is the truth-telling dimension of reconciliation that calls upon Christians to think hard, pray hard, and speak honestly. And that means not only in the public square but to one another in our congregations as well.

As the church we are called to create "Christian spaces" for parties who are in conflict – not neutral spaces (which always favor the powerful and the status quo), but rather spaces wherein Christians are called to reflect on their faith and practice in light of God’s desire that all people live and thrive, remembering Scripture’s testimony of God’s righteous defense of those who have been made poor and vulnerable. During the boycott and in the current campaign for fair food which is holding McDonald’s and other fast food companies accountable, congregations have been on the front lines by opening up their churches’ educational hours to the farmworkers and especially inviting their members who are executives of fast food corporations to attend. These kinds of encounters have meant that executives have had to hoist 32 pound buckets of tomatoes and meet farmworkers, who are made invisible inputs in their corporate supply chain, face to face as sisters and brothers in Christ.

Perhaps Gerardo Reyes Chavez, a farmworker and leader in the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, put it best when, in a thank you letter he wrote following at the conclusion of the boycott

The church was absolutely necessary in this struggle because you have a lot of power especially in the eyes of corporations. And you had more connections with their human side. Executives of corporations are members of congregations. And farmworkers are church people also. Your ability to connect both with executives and with farmworkers as people of faith, allowed a point of encounter between worlds that were in conflict but that were able to find, in this case through the church, a reconciliation.

We are setting an example for people all over the country in terms of how we are partners in this struggle. We can change many things in the fast-food industry today by standing the line together – no matter how overwhelming changing the situation seems or how much we have to sacrifice to make it happen. And we know we are going to succeed.

The Presbyterian Church’s partnership with the CIW is not only a liberating partnership for the farmworkers, it is a liberating partnership for the church – renewing us as we stand side by side with the workers and insist that another way of doing business is possible, a way that ensures the dignity and well-being of those laboring at the bottom of supply chains. And the good news is that the ranks of people and institutions of faith that have become partners with the CIW, are growing, especially among Catholics! And this means that our work will be deepened through even stronger ecumenical and interfaith reflection and action with the farmworkers. Together, with God’s help, we’re seeing a new day dawning in the agricultural and food industries, a day where the human rights of farmworkers will be guaranteed. And a day where the church is renewed as well.

Rev. Noelle Damico is Associate for Fair Food for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). For more, visit www.pcusa.org/fairfood.


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