Slave Next Door (14 page)

become a peer educator for others coming out of slavery, calming their

fears of retaliation, and addressing the shame many feel for having been

“bought, sold, and treated like an animal.”

The CIW has provided training on agricultural slavery for many

organizations, including the FBI in Quantico, Orlando, and Miami, for

both supervisors and field agents; the North Carolina State Troopers

Training Academy; the Florida Coalition against Domestic Violence;

and the North and South Carolina U.S. Attorney’s Offices, where the

training included local, state, and federal officials and was attended by

such agencies as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

H O L D I N G T H E B I G C O R P O R AT I O N S A C C O U N TA B L E

But it is not enough just to uncover slavery and bring the bad guys to

account: while prosecution is vital, it addresses an abuse only after it

has occurred. The CIW takes the view that, while it is necessary to

address trafficking cases as they arise, new ones will just keep coming

up. As the CIW sees it, the true key to ending slavery is to prevent it

from happening in the first place by targeting the big corporations that

buy the produce because they have power over the growers and their

subcontractors. “Our goal,” says Germino, “is to get them to take

responsibility and say, ‘We are no longer going to tolerate sweatshop con-

ditions and slavery.’” Many of the current labor violations—including a

steep increase in the number of trafficking cases—are indirectly driven

by the demand for lower and lower prices by the buyers from the big

corporations. So now, says Germino, “Let them use their power in the

market for good. . . . [If] they can say to a supplier, ‘We want ‘x’ and ‘y’

health and safety standards, we want this size tomato, we want this

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color,’ they can do the same for labor standards as they do for animal

rights. They could say, ‘We don’t want these particular kinds of abuses

in our supply chain.’”47

By going after the big buyers, the CIW is looking to reverse the

process of falling wages and worsening conditions. They see criminal

prosecution as a short-term means of dealing with existing slavery cases,

while the concept of corporate accountability aims at removing the con-

ditions that give rise to abuse in the first place. Many activist organiza-

tions choose to address labor abuses by concentrating on what goes on

inside the farm gate; the coalition’s approach takes the issue beyond the

gate, to the offices of America’s biggest market and fast-food corpora-

tions. The ultimate objective is to convince the buyers to eliminate

sweatshop conditions and slavery from their supply chain.

Ringing Taco Bell’s Bell

In 2001, the CIW began what would become a four-year boycott aimed

specifically at Taco Bell and its parent company, Yum Brands. The “Boot

the Bell” campaign included marches and media events, including a ten-

day hunger strike on the lawn of Taco Bell’s corporate headquarters. It

also saw a groundswell among college students that resulted in the clos-

ing or blocking of a number of Taco Bell restaurants. The result, which

gained national attention, was a concession from Taco Bell to pay a

penny more per pound of tomatoes directly to the workers, to adopt a

genuine policy of zero tolerance for slavery, and to establish an “enforce-

able code of conduct,” drawn up with the participation of the workers.48

In early 2007, Yum Brands added its other companies—including KFC,

Long John Silver, Pizza Hut, and A&W—to the agreement.

On April 9, 2007, after a two-year campaign, McDonald’s followed

suit—along with their suppliers—and agreed to pay the additional penny

per pound. They also consented to work with the coalition in a “collab-

orative effort to develop a third party mechanism for monitoring condi-

tions in the fields and investigating workers’ complaints of abuse.”49

Initially, the response from Burger King was not as positive. In late

2007, Burger King—after nearly two years of discussions with the coali-

tion—issued a public response that has baffled and frustrated CIW lead-

ership. As one coalition leader has stated, “It’s as if they’re repeating every

failed tactic Taco Bell had tried to use.”50 They refused to pay the addi-

tional penny per pound, claiming no connection with the workforce. And

rather than focus on the issue of wages and working conditions—the true

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root issues—the Burger King spokespeople expressed dismay at the

workers’
housing
situation: “The workers’ living conditions are, in fact,

substandard, and we are sympathetic and concerned about the hous-

ing.” Burger King offered a counterproposal for improving the lives of

the workers: “We have offered to send Burger King recruiters to the area

to speak with the CIW and with workers themselves about permanent,

full-time employment at Burger King restaurants.”51 Lucas Benitez of

CIW responded: “Burger King was never acting in good faith. How else

could one explain their absurd offer to solve the ongoing exploitation of

farm workers by training all of Immokalee’s tomato pickers to work in

their restaurants? Who, exactly, would be left to pick their tomatoes?

This kind of answer isn’t even serious; it’s a slap in the face.”52

In lieu of paying a penny more per pound, monitoring field condi-

tions, and refusing to buy slave-harvested produce, Burger King offered

charity: “We have . . . spoken with the CIW about the strong interest

from the charitable arm of Burger King Corporation, the Have It Your

Way Foundation. . . . The Foundation is keenly interested in working

with the CIW and others to identify charitable organizations that could

improve the lives of the workers.”53 The CIW membership feels that

Burger King has missed the point. The workers never requested, or

wanted, charity; they are seeking a small but long overdue wage increase

for the paid workers and freedom for those enslaved. CIW members saw

the offer of charity as an insult.

Ironically, just a few weeks after issuing their position statement

denying concessions to workers, Burger King was the subject of an arti-

cle on the front page of the
New York Times
Business Section, under a

banner reading, “Burger King Pledges Cage-Free Food.” “Animal rights

activists praised Burger King,” the article states, “for its new commit-

ment to begin buying eggs and pork from suppliers that do not keep

their animals in cages or crates.” Burger King, the article continues,

“has told egg suppliers that it will look favorably on cage-free eggs

when making purchasing decisions.”54 As Lucas Benitez said during the

Taco Bell boycott, “Taco Bell has a policy that it will not buy food from

contractors that mistreat animals. All we are asking is that they have the

same policy for humans.”55

Instead, Burger King resorted to dirty tricks. First, a spate of vicious

comments and false allegations against the CIW began to appear on the

Internet, signed only by the writer’s online names. “The CIW is an

attack organization,” read one, submitted under the name surfxaholic,

“lining the leaders’ pockets. . . . They make up issues and collect money

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from dupes that believe their story.” Other submissions referred to the

CIW as “bloodsuckers” and “the lowest form of life.” As it turned out,

the smear campaign was ultimately connected to Stephen Grover, a

Burger King vice president, who used his young daughter’s computer

and online name to wage his nasty little war. He was finally unmasked

in April 2008 when his daughter spilled the beans. A CIW member com-

mented, “When you realize the person posting those things is actually

Burger King’s vice president in charge of the ethical operation of the

company’s supply chain, it makes you wonder just how high up does

this whole thing go.”56

Around the same time, it was discovered that Cara Schaffer, the

twenty-five-year-old owner of a private security firm hired by Burger

King, had infiltrated the CIW and the Student/Farmworker Alliance, a

nonprofit student activist organization, by pretending to be a student at

Broward Community College. She attended two planning sessions by

phone before her true identity became known. Schaffer, a loose cannon

who had apparently been denied her Florida private investigator’s

license because of lack of training, had nonetheless been employed on

other such projects by the fast-food giant. John Chidsey, the CEO of

Burger King, was aware of the long-term use of Schaffer’s company, but

as one Burger King executive stated, “It is both the corporation’s right

and duty to protect its employees and assets from potential harm.” Why

the massive organization felt the need to protect itself from two pacifist

nonprofits was not explained.57

Burger King’s indiscretions made the national news, including the

New York Times.
In late May 2008, smarting under the exposure, the

corporation issued a public apology to the CIW and signed an accord

along the lines of those approved by Yum Brands and McDonalds. Since

then, Subway and Whole Foods have followed suit. There are still a

number of Goliaths, including Chipotle and Wal-Mart, that have yet to

acknowledge their involvement in the exploitation of workers; the CIW’s

long-term game plan includes them as well.

The CIW’s antislavery efforts have not gone unrecognized. In 2003,

three CIW members received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights

Award for their work in combating slavery. They are CIW co-founder

Lucas Benitez, “undercover operative” Romeo Ramirez, and the coura-

geous Julia Gabriel. It was the first time this prestigious international

award was given to recipients within the United States. In 2007, the

CIW was given the annual Anti-Slavery Award by London-based Anti-

Slavery International, the world’s oldest and original human rights

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group. In April 2008, Lucas Benitez joined farmworkers, growers, and

law enforcement officials in testifying at a U.S. Senate Health,

Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing entitled “Ending

Abuses and Improving Working Conditions for Tomato Workers.” The

hearing was held by U.S. Senators Ted Kennedy, Bernie Sanders, and

Richard Durbin.

Hitting Them in the Pocketbook

In addition to campaigns and the criminal prosecution of traffickers,

another avenue is open to antislavery workers: civil litigation. The goal

is to obtain financial compensation and emotional and psychological

satisfaction for former slaves by suing the traffickers and everyone asso-

ciated with them. As the U.S. district judge in the Ramos case said at

their sentencing, “There are others . . . at a higher level, that . . . are

complicit in one way or another in how these activities occur. . . .

They . . . create a legal fiction or corporation that insulates them . . . so

they can be relieved from any liability. . . . I think there is a broader

interest out there that the government should look at as well.”58 If the

feds won’t prosecute, the human rights groups bring civil lawsuits.

Occasionally, a lawsuit is brought alongside a criminal prosecution.

In the case of Ronald Evans, who enslaved residents of homeless shelters

with booze and crack cocaine, Lisa Butler of Florida Rural Legal

Services sued the growers. By 2008, she had brought three separate suits

against two growers for failing to provide either employment or the

wages promised, for substandard housing, and for extortion and forced

labor. Typically, for her case to succeed, she needs the victims’ testi-

mony. “All cases,” she explained, “turn on what the workers want to

do.” In the Evans case, several of her clients have testified.59 At this writ-

ing, two of the cases had settled to the workers’ satisfaction.

Besides gaining recompense for the victims, attorneys see civil litiga-

tion as a way of fighting demand. Dan Werner, legal director of the

Workers’ Rights Law Center of New York, states, “We want to make it

costlier to use slaves than to hire paid workers.”60 Civil courts, he adds,

are the only system where the victim can actually confront his abuser

directly, and as such, they become part of the healing and empowering

process. Werner is himself pursuing civil lawsuits in a recent New York

State agricultural slavery case involving the Garcia-Botello family.

The Garcias were big western New York State labor contractors who

had been running a trafficking operation for years. They were part of a

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