Gainesville, FL–Slavery didn’t end with the Emancipation Proclamation. Farm workers were toiling in Alachua County fields just three years ago when a Haitian labor contractor allegedly held his crew in bondage. Gainesville Interfaith Alliance for Immigrant Justice, UF Institute of Hispanic-Latino Cultures, CHISPAS, Samuel Proctor Oral History Program and Gators for Free the Slaves are sponsoring a series of events with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to educate the public about the exploitation of farm workers. All events are free and everyone is welcome.
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The Coalition of Immokalee Workers will bring their Modern Slavery Museum to Gainesville as a highlight of CIW Action Week. The museum, which focuses on recent cases of involuntary servitude in Florida, will be at the Plaza of the Americas on the UF campus 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday September 18 and at Trinity United Methodist Church, 4000 NW 53rd Avenue, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday September 19.
CIW members will be present at both locations to tell about a typical day in the life of a farm worker and the changes brought by CIW’s Fair Food Agreement.
“Rape in the Fields,” a documentary about sexual exploitation of women farm workers, will be screened 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 18 in Pugh Hall Room 170 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. CIW members will be present at the screening and will be able to engage the audience in dialogue about the Campaign for Fair Food, which includes remedies to end sexual harassment/violence.
Lake Apopka Farm Workers Quilt Project will have a program, discussion and refreshments 11 a.m. through 1 p.m. Saturday September 21 co-sponsored by the Alachua County Public Library at 400 East University Avenue. SPOHP students worked with the Farmworkers Association of Florida during the past summer conduct oral history interviews with Apopka farmworkers.
Farm workers will join with Gainesville clergy, students, and local residents 2 p.m. Sunday September 22 at Westminster Presbyterian Church at 1521 NW 34th Street to announce during a press conference, a new phase in the Fair Food Campaign. A march for farm worker rights will follow.
Since its founding in 1993, CIW has done much to improve the lives of workers in South Florida tomatoes. CIW soon learned that it was necessary to concentrate on the major tomato buyers who set the prices and the standards for growers and distributors. With ten major fast food and supermarket corporations pledged to support fair wages and decent working conditions, they were finally able to get 97% of the growers to sign a Fair Food Agreement in November 2011. Since then Chipotle and Trader Joe’s have signed the agreement. But the holdouts among corporate buyers threaten to undermine these gains, not least by replacing fair trade Immokalee tomatoes with lower cost tomatoes from Mexico.
News Release From: the Gainesville Interfaith Alliance for Immigrant Justice
1236 NW 18th Avenue
Gainesville, FL 32607
(352) 377-6577 or (831) 334-0117