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PeaceJammers from the RCSA Community Unity Club in Jacksonville, Florida have been working to promote a higher quality of life for the tomato workers.
According to their research,
The youth wrote:
"Florida farm-workers who pick tomato in industrial farms in the state work for sub-poverty wages that have remain stagnant for the past thirty years. In this line of work, they have no right to overtime pay, no health insurance, no sick leave, no vacation or pension and no right to organize and improve their conditions." |
The youth group presented to classes in their school about the injustices, and got their peers to ask their parents to stop shopping at the grocers who do not participate in the Alliance for Fair Food program. They wrote over 500 letters to the grocers they were working to persuade. On March 9th, thirty-five PeaceJammers traveled to Lakeland, Florida to join with Coalition of Immokallee Workers (CIW) in a fasting demonstration. Some students gave up things they would usually indulge in, some fasted from sun up to some down, and some even fasted all food for the six days of the event. The demonstration was ended with a three and a half mile walk with hundreds of others to the headquarters of a grocery store, where bread was broken to end the fast. These youth brought much needed attention and passion to the issue.
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