We need YOU to help flood social media with the urgent call for Wendy’s investors Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, Wells Fargo, and BNY Mellon to make their commitment to socially responsible investing real!
Last week, farmworkers in Immokalee made the difficult decision to postpone the highly-anticipated Follow the Money March, which was to have taken place over three days this week in New York City, in light of the global public health crisis caused by the coronavirus (you can read the full statement
here).
But as the CIW has proven time and time again over the course of the 20-year Campaign for Fair Food, nothing –
not rain,
not snow, and not even the coronavirus – can blunt the determination of farmworkers in Immokalee. As soon as the decision to postpone this week’s march was made, the CIW and the Alliance for Fair Food immediately shifted gears, pivoting to harness the tremendous momentum generated in New York and across the country in the run-up to the cancelled mach, and to keep cranking up the heat on Wendy’s to join the Fair Food Program.
March or no march, that means taking our demand for real, tangible change in the lives of farmworkers in Wendy’s supply chain to the top shareholders who have the ear of Wendy’s decision-makers. Several of the biggest and best-known Wall Street investment firms and banks – including Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, Wells Fargo, BNY Mellon, and Trian Partners – hold significant stakes in the hamburger giant, and their money gives them considerable influence in the decisions that determine the value of Wendy’s brand – if they choose to use it.
For far too long, Wendy’s refusal to join the Fair Food Program has been a stain on the company’s brand. That stain is now spreading to Wendy’s top investors, and if the investment firms and banks behind the fast-food giant ever hope to stake out a position in the fast-growing market of socially responsible investing, the first step they must take is to use their power to urge Wendy’s to join the Fair Food Program, the universally-acclaimed gold standard for social responsibility in agriculture today.
But as a wise abolitionist once famously said, power concedes nothing without a demand. If we are counting on Wall Street to convince Wendy’s to do the right thing, they’ll have to hear from us, from the Fair Food Nation, loud and clear.
And since we can’t be in the streets this week, we will need every single person in the Fair Food Nation – those who were geared up to come to New York, and those who were going to be cheering us on from their home communities – to help carry our voices through the virtual streets of social media, and into the executive suites and board rooms of the deep-pocketed investors behind Wendy’s.
Here’s how you can add your voice to the Follow the Money online campaign this week:
Send a message to major Wendy’s investors on social media and demand they use their power to bring the fast-food holdout into the Fair Food Program!
