Catherwood LibraryILR School

Members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, representing low-paid tomato pickers in Florida, on a nation-wide caravan protesting at Taco Bell stores drove their point home yesterday with a rally outside Taco Bell headquarters in Irvine, California. 500 local supporters of the Immokalee movement's Taco Bell boycott met the farm workers at the start of a two-mile march from a local park to the protest in order to help raise awareness of what they feel is Taco Bell's responsibility to push for improvements in the low wages and poor working conditions of the workers who supply its tomatoes. Taco Bell met with the workers but continues to insist that because it buys its tomatoes through a broker firm that buys from several tomato packing companies---including the Six L Packing Company that employs the workers---they have no responsibility to become involved. [Members of the ILR School may be familiar with this issue from the activities of the Cornell Organization for Labor Action (COLA) on behalf of the Immokalee Workers, and can contact Tomer Malchi at tm99@cornell.edu for more information.]