Just a few weeks following the whirlwind 10-day Workers’ Voice Tour, the Wendy’s boycott – the second-ever boycott declared in the 15-year history of the CIW’s Campaign for Fair Food – is in full swing! To keep building pressure on the final fast food holdout, the CIW is inviting allies across the country to participate in the newly-declared Wendy’s Boycott Month of Action this April.
Already, farmworkers and thousands of consumer allies nationwide have united their voices to tell Wendy’s and its recalcitrant leadership that the Fair Food Nation is freezing its wallets until the final fast food holdout joins the Fair Food Program. It’s a significant step in the three-year campaign, and a necessary one given Wendy’s refusal to take responsibility for the working conditions in its supply chain. Workers and allies have declared the national boycott for three principal reasons:
As the CIW detailed on its website, it’s this last reason that sets Wendy’s apart from the fourteen other major food retailers that have joined the Fair Food Program, and made the declaration of a boycott all but inevitable. How else to respond to a company that runs away from the most widely-respected and highly lauded social responsibility program in agriculture today, into the arms of an industry in Mexico where child labor, sexual abuse, and forced labor are prevalent and widely documented?
And just following the tour’s conclusion, the release of an explosive new article in Harper’s Magazine, “Trump’s Tomatoes,” continues to add even more fuel to the fire of the newly-declared boycott. It critically reveals that the Kaliroy Corporation — the very same Mexican tomato producer that was the subject of a scathing exposé by the LA Times detailing the enslavement of hundreds of Mexican workers in nightmarish working conditions — is in fact “one of Wendy’s suppliers.”
Wendy’s has consciously and unacceptably shifted purchases away from “one of the great human rights success stories of our day" directly into a documented human rights nightmare. To understand the significance of this unconscionable decision, take a look at the second installment of the explosive four-part investigative series in the LA Times entitled “A Product of Mexico: Hardship on Mexican Farms, a Bounty on US Tables.”
This April, join us in expressing our collective disappointment and anger at Wendy’s continued disregard for human rights for the workers that pick the produce that make their profits possible. To channel this sentiment into building on the wave of energy generated by the boycott and major spring action, the CIW has declared April the Wendy’s Boycott Month of Action: the “Month of Outrage.”
Join us to let Wendy’s know that the longer the fast food giant waits, the stronger this national boycott will grow. Here are just some of the many ways you can take part in the upcoming month of action:
- March or picket at your local Wendy’s
- Deliver a letter signed by your community to the local Wendy’s manager
- Write an op-ed in your local paper
- Organize a group call-in to the office of Wendy’s Board Chair Nelson Peltz’s office
- Run a boycott pledge drive (and document it with photos!)
- Host a vigil at a local Wendy’s
Download our boycott creative action guide for more ideas and pointers to put together your very own action! And if you’re in Southwest Florida, you can join farmworkers from Immokalee in launching the Month of Outrage this Sunday at 1 pm in Naples at the Wendy’s at 4114 Tamiami Trail N.
Ready to turn up the heat on Wendy’s in your community? Write us at organize (at) allianceforfairfood.org to share your boycott action plans and report-backs – and stay tuned to read about all the exciting actions the Fair Food Nation comes up with this month!