Coalition of Immokalee Workers

But she was always doing these things.

And I remember When she was 90, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, farm workers in South Florida, said to her, well, we are having a protest in Palm Beach, the little community where you live, against Nelson Peltz, because Nelson Peltz owns Wendy's and is refusing to give the farm workers a penny more per pound.

They make 33 cents per pound.

They want one more cent per pound.

You wanna go?" [laughs] And we'd get in the stroller with the kids in the, you know, car and go over and march around, and we marched around for, uh, to end child labor in front of the US Capitol, and the little kids are, you know, crawling under the podium and poking it with their, their, their feet and, um, and we're giving speeches and stuff, and it, it w- she just, like, had this way of integrating everything into the whole.

And I remember when she was i- 90, she was in a wheelchair, and she hated to be seen in a wheelchair, but, um, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, this group of farm workers, were protesting against Wendy's, and the head of Wendy's is called Nelson Peltz, and Nelson Peltz is a big sort of society leader in Palm Beach, Florida.

So they called my mother, and they said, "We're doing a protest against Nelson Peltz along Worth Avenue," which is the big flashy main street with all the fancy, uh, stores on, on Palm Beach.

"Will you come?" And she said, "Absolutely." And then she led hundreds and hundreds of farm workers with signposts against Wendy's and showing Nelson Peltz photograph up Worth Avenue, and, you know, she, like, you can't imagine her being happier.

I mean, it's not pleasant work.

It's, it's an area of Florida where things are so bad, there's actually the Coalition of Immokalee Workers sp- ... has a mobile museum called the Museum of Modern Day Slavery.

Um, this area of Florida is the reason I patently refuse to buy produce from some of the major grocers in Florida.

Hmm.

Because, um, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, their, their whole thing is fair food.

I've been trying for a long time to get one of their reps on here, but I think we're small potatoes.

Um, their whole mission is they want grocery stores, restaurants, fast food places to buy produce from farms that agree to pay a fair wage to the people picking.

... um, Bon Appétit, Compass Group, those are large ones.

Migrant Justice in Burlington, Vermont, they have their Milk with Dignity campaign in which dairy workers are asking major milk distributors such as Hannaford Supermarkets to join their program.

The CIW Coalition of Immokalee Workers out of Florida has the Wendy's boycott.

Wendy's refuses to join the Fair Food Program and pay a penny extra per pound of tomatoes to help farm workers get better pay.

We're also supporting the We Count Planting Justice Campaign, which brings together nursery workers in the plant industry, and they are taking action in calling out plant nursery growers to join their campaign so that they can also improve their working conditions.