Petition to End Modern-Day Slavery in the Fields

Thursday, April 03 2008, 03:14 PM EDT
Contributed by: phylliszoon Views: 174

[If you're in a hurry, you can skip the rest of this posting and visit http://ciw-online.org/2008_Petitions/index.html for background and to sign the petition electronically.]

Since 2005, Presbyterians have been urging Burger King to work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to address poverty wages and exploitative working conditions in the fields of its Florida tomato suppliers. Unlike McDonald's and Yum! Brands (which owns Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver's and A & W Restaurants) which have forged ground-breaking agreements with the CIW, Burger King has not only refused, the company has worked to halt the gains made in these agreements.

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.

The PC(USA) Campaign for Fair Food urges Presbyterians sign and widely circulate the CIW's National Petition to End Modern-Day Slavery and Sweatshops in the Fields and join in peaceful public actions together with the CIW, to convince the company to advance human rights in the Florida fields.

The CIW has set a deadline of April 25th for all signatures to be in on their petition. They will deliver the petitions to Burger King in Miami on April 28th.

Many of you know that Clifton Kirkpatrick and Linda Valentine have signed the petition and that Cliff released a stirring statement on why he signed and why he hopes others will join him. These stories and the statement are available on www.pcusa.org/fairfood .

Since then, Cliff and Linda have been joined by a number of other prominent Presbyterians including Tom Taylor (GAC Deputy Ex. Dir for Mission), Dr. Arlene Gordon (Ex. Presbyter in Tropical FL where BK is headquartered), Rev. Alfredo Miranda (head of the Hispanic Latino Caucus), Rev. Greg Bentley (head of the Black Caucus), former GA moderators Rick Ufford-Chase and the Rev. Susan Andrews. I hope you and many of the folks in your presbyteries will be encouraged by this to sign the petition in which signatories pledge they are prepared to cease patronizing Burger King if the company does not move now to work with the CIW.

And just in case you haven't seen the latest Burger King Campaign resources, it's an online FAQ and Chronology of the PC(USA)'s engagement with Burger King. It's out at http://www.pcusa.org/fairfood/burger-king-campaign.htm (or go to www.pcusa.org/fairfood and click on the link in the right margin.

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