Labor leaders to join march on Burger King [View All]

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Newszap

Arlene Holt Baker, the newly-elected Executive Vice President of the AFL-CIO, will march and speak on behalf of the country’s largest labor federation at the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW') March on Burger King Nov. 30. She will be joined by the AFL-CIO’s Director of Organizing, Stewart Acuff, and union members from across Florida and the country.

Eliseo Medina, Executive Vice President of SEIU and a leader of the Change to Win coalition of unions, will also be joining the march and speaking at the rally outside Burger King’s corporate headquarters. Change to Win affiliated unions in Miami -- including SEIU 11 and UNITE HERE Local 355 --- have long been close CIW allies, an alliance forged over years of fighting together for workers' rights on picket lines, marches, and in hunger strikes, bridging the divide between Miami and Immokalee.

The march will begin in downtown Miami at the offices of Goldman Sachs -- one of three multi-billion dollar private equity firms that own a controlling share of Burger King's stock -- and pass several Burger King restaurants along the way to Burger King's corporate headquarters near Miami's airport. Equipped with signs, art, puppets, banners and even marching musicians with their instruments in tow, marchers will deliver their message, that “Fair Food Will Reign," directly to Burger King’s doorstep.

The “Fair Food Will Reign” march follows an honored tradition of CIW marches for justice. In Miami, the CIW will be accompanied by both first-timers as well as longtime Florida allies with a history of walking shoulder to shoulder with Immokalee farm workers for human rights in the fields. Some are veterans of the 230-mile “March for Dignity, Dialogue and a Fair Wage”, from Ft Myers, to Orlando in 2000, and the 34-mile “Root Cause People’s March” to the Free Trade Area of the Americas meetings in 2003, the CIW’s first foray by foot into Miami’s streets.

Read more: http://www.newszap.com/articles/2007/11/28/fl/immokalee/imm01.txt