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 KERRY
KENNEDY is the Founder of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights, author
of Speak Truth to Power and a Columnist for MaximsNews.com,
An Independent Voice from the United Nations.
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"The
CIW’s courage and commitment continues
to drive one of America’s most
compelling human rights campaigns. As a
proud founding member of the Alliance
for Fair Food, we are committed to
supporting their continued efforts.
This
past Monday, McDonald’s set a
resounding example agreeing to the
international human rights principles
laid out by the CIW. McDonald’s
transformed ideas of corporate
responsibility into more than words on
their letterhead.
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Industry leaders like Burger
King and Subway now have the opportunity to follow in McDonald’s footsteps by
accepting accountability for protecting the rights of those laboring in the
fields, doing the back breaking labor of picking the produce that ends up in
their salads and sandwiches.
As Dolores Huerta and Cesar
Chavez taught us all in America’s first farm worker's movements, human rights
enforcement cannot be left to governments and law enforcement alone.
41 years ago this month, my
father, Robert F. Kennedy, first encountered the human rights struggle faced by farm workers
in this country in Delano, California at a U.S. Senate field hearing.
Cesar, Dolores and the United
Farm Workers were leading a boycott of California table grapes, forcing
companies and consumers involved in the buying and selling of the fruit to see
their role in continuing the cycle of poverty and abuse.
Four decades later, labor laws,
pay and working conditions remain grim for farm workers. The struggle continues
for farm workers and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) has picked up
Cesar Chavez’s torch.
My father once said "there
is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the bomb
or the shot in the night.
This is the violence of
institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay." The farm workers
of Immokalee, Florida toil in fields ripe with institutional indifference.
The CIW and their allies are
overcoming historic abuses by forcing the retail-food industry to end their
indifference to human suffering.
Today big produce purchasers
like McDonald’s, Burger King and Subway are at the center of human rights
issues in farm worker communities like Immokalee.
These companies must realize
that they have international human rights obligation to stop abuse within their
operations and supply networks. McDonald’s has recognized just that.
In 2000 the United Nations
concluded ending human rights abuses were at the center of responsible corporate
citizenship in the 21st century.
The United Nations’ Global
Compact and subsequent U.N. agreements on human rights norms require
corporations to make sure they are not directly supporting human rights abuses
while protecting internationally proclaimed human rights within their supply
chain and spheres of influence.
McDonald’s joined with 50
other global companies to sign on to the Global Compact and with Monday’s
agreement they follow through on their human rights commitments.
Now it is time for Burger King,
Subway, Walmart and others in the retail food industry to acknowledge their
responsibilities and partner with the farm workers, the victims of
institutionalized human rights abuse.
The Coalition of Immokalee
Workers is not asking for special treatment or handouts for its members. Their
corporate partnerships are grounded in three internationally recognized human
rights principles.
First, we all share the right
against slavery and forced labor. Still the agricultural industry in Florida, in
the words of federal officials, has become “ground zero for modern day
slavery.”
The Coalition of Immokalee
Workers has helped prosecute six slavery cases of involuntary servitude
involving over 1,000 farm workers in Florida since 1997.
The CIW requires its corporate
partners adopt a verifiable zero tolerance policy for modern-day slavery in
their supply chain.
Still international human
rights laws recognize violations of economic and social rights often lay the
foundation for forced labor.
Understanding this, the CIW
recognizes corporations’ anti-slavery codes alone will not assure farm workers’
freedom. Workers freedom requires companies to acknowledge workers’ rights to
economic security and the right to participate in assuring companies comply with
such codes.
Everyone has a human right to
just working conditions, including fair wages that provide for a decent living
for workers and their families.
Today the average farm worker
in Immokalee has a yearly income of less than $7,500. The CIW demands that farm workers
be paid a penny per a pound of tomatoes picked directly from produce purchasers
like McDonald’s and Yum! Foods.
The increase effectively
doubles the wages of farm workers picking for their suppliers.
If the entire industry stepped
up like these two companies and made similar agreements, farm workers and their
families could overcome extreme poverty.
Finally employees and their
representatives like the Coalition of Immokalee Workers have a right to
participate with corporations in determining and implementing methods to fulfill
human rights responsibilities in corporate supply chains.
Internationally accepted human
rights norms require companies to work with groups like the CIW to guarantee
companies and their suppliers will follow through on their responsibilities with
capable, independent and transparent operations to monitor codes of conduct that
allow workers and the victims of abuse to have a voice.
Human rights are held by all
persons equally, universally, and forever.
Corporations must realize these
rights are indivisible and interdependent.
Without these rights slavery,
poverty and abuse will continue in America’s retail food industry, tainting
the salads and sandwiches of those who do not stand up for human dignity.
Congratulations to the
Coalition of Immokalee Workers and to McDonald’s for their historic
accomplishment, setting the standards for human rights in the retail food
industry.
~~~~~
MaximsNews.com, An Independent Voice from the
U.N., provides commentary and analysis from
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Kennedy, Ian Williams, Stephen Schlesinger, Sen.
Timothy E. Wirth, Marc Morial, Amb. Jayantha
Dhanapala (Sri Lanka), Amb. Pierre Schori
(Sweden), Amb. William H. Luers, Susan Roosevelt
Weld, Rory Kennedy, Mehri
Madarshahi, J. Michael Adams, Gloria Feldt,
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Bommer, Rory
O'Connor, Genevieve Stamper, Max Stamper and
others.
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