FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 20th, 2004

STUDENTS TO MARCH FROM MISSION STREET TO PACIFIC AVENUE TACO BELLS IN NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION

Over 40 Actions Planned in Solidarity with Farmworkers Struggling for a Living Wage; Over 70 Universities and High Schools to Participate in Taco Bell Truth Tour Events

SANTA CRUZ, CA - On February 27th, the Taco Bell on Mission Street will be the starting point for the National Day of Action in solidarity with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, to highlight the sweatshop conditions in the Florida fields where Taco Bell's tomatoes are picked. This action is expected to have over 300 participants, with speakers (TBA), music, and art-in-action. This is the second largest planned action next to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers' demonstration in Kentucky. Marchers will gather at 3:30pm on Friday, February 27th at the Mission Street Taco Bell and march to the Pacific Avenue Taco Bell. This will be a big, action-oriented event that is not to be missed.

From February 27th to March 5th, students around the country will be holding protests, teach-ins, and demonstrations in solidarity with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). The CIW, a farmworker organization from Immokalee, Florida, is spearheading the national boycott of Taco Bell.

From Tampa to Texas, from New York to New College, students and young people are organizing over 40 Solidarity Actions, involving over 70 universities and high schools, in a week of solidarity actions timed to coincide with a cross-country tour by over 100 CIW members. Other students and youth will travel with the workers. The workers' tour, dubbed the 2004 Taco Bell Truth Tour, is the latest national action in a boycott campaign that has become one of the fastest growing movements for social justice on campuses today.

The Student/Farmworker Alliance (SFA) is coordinating the week of solidarity actions. The SFA is a nationally networked coalition of independent student groups whose "Boot the Bell" campaign has successfully blocked or removed Taco Bell from 18 campuses across the country, and has been named one of the "Top Ten Activist Student Campaigns" by Mother Jones Magazine for 2003. The SFA works in alliance with farmworkers' efforts to win improvements in farm labor conditions and to hold corporations like Taco Bell accountable for the exploitation behind the produce they buy.

"As students, we support the efforts of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and unite to demand that corporations like Taco Bell take responsibility for the conditions in their supply chain," said Brian Payne of the Student Farmworker Alliance. "We demand that Taco Bell use the same market dominance that has lowered produce prices and pushed workers into poverty to instead improve conditions in the fields. We recognize our role as Taco Bell's target market and declare our solidarity with workers in boycotting Taco Bell. Students demand fair food that respects human rights, not fast food that exploits human beings."

Nick Laskowski, alum of the Georgetown (University) Solidarity Committee, explained, "We come to our work with the Student Farmworker Alliance with the same passion that we have brought to anti-sweatshop, global justice, and campus living wage struggles. We see Taco Bell and YUM! Brands as integral partners in the system of exploitation that keeps billions around the world locked in poverty, perpetuating conditions in the fields of Florida, fields which have become "ground zero" for the internationally-reported plague of modern-day slavery. We demand immediate and quick action on the part of these corporate giants to end these human rights abuses by increasing the produce piece rates that have plummeted 65% in buying power in the last 25 years". [Tomato pickers earn 40-45 cents per bucket picked, the same rate paid to workers since 1978].

Student Farmworker Alliance's Solidarity Actions will be focused on 2 National Days of Action. On February 27th as the CIW workers and their allies march to Yum! Brands headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, (the parent company of Taco Bell), students will be holding solidarity actions across the country, including the 300 person march in Santa Cruz, California. On March 5th, the CIW will finish its 44 mile march to Irvine, California from East LA to the global headquarters of Taco Bell, holding a mass rally featuring Tom Morello, formerly of Rage Against the Machine, and many others. Many students from Santa Cruz will be bussing down to this mass rally.

For more information on the events contact: Pete Rasmussen
peterasmussen (at) hotmail.com
831-462-1053 or 831-345-6377

For more information on the CIW's movement, see the website: www.ciw-online.org

We will walk in Unity. We will March in Solidarity

Love, Compassion, Strength, Change

Pete Rasmussen

831-462-1053 (home)
831-345-6377 (cell)