Yale Student Farmworker Alliance in Yale Daily News: “It is unacceptable that Yale backs away from fair and humane conditions in its supply chain when a program exists which can guarantee them.”
“Twenty years ago, students helped bring the groundbreaking Fair Food Program into existence. Now, it’s our turn to help expand the reach of the FFP’s life-saving protections to as many workers as possible.”
Last week, with midterms behind them and the autumn weather giving way to the colder months ahead, students across Yale University woke up to an op-ed in their paper of record, Yale Daily News, about a groundbreaking effort underway on their campus.
Inspired by the transformative success of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Fair Food Program, Yale students have banded together to call on the university to join the FFP as a Participating Buyer!
In the face of a growing human rights crisis in the fields outside the FFP, this student-led effort holds the promise of significantly expanding the reach of the Presidential Medal-winning Program — not only by securing a commitment from Yale University to preferentially purchase from participating farms, but also by creating a blueprint for students across the nation to use in calling on their own universities to join the Program. Indeed, what’s happening today on Yale University’s campus might just be the dawn of the second national student movement in support of the Fair Food Program since the launch of the Campaign for Fair Food almost 25 year ago.
Since the CIW’s declaration of a national boycott against Taco Bell in 2001, students have played a pivotal role as a force multiplier in the worker-led movement for a more modern, more humane food system. From booting fast food restaurants from 28 campuses across the country for refusing to join the FFP in the historic “Boot the Bell” campaign, to mobilizing thousands of farmworker allies in countless local actions, students have fought shoulder-to-shoulder with farmworkers for over two decades.
Now, having helped win the battle to launch the Fair Food Program in 2010, students are once again joining farmworkers on the frontlines, this time at Yale University helping expand the program’s best-in-class human rights protections to the farmworkers who put food on the tables of Yale’s famous dining halls.
We’re excited to share excerpts from their op-ed below. If you are a current student interested in bringing the FFP to your campus, reach out to us at [email protected].
Click here to read the op-ed in full. And of course, stay tuned for more updates on this new and exiting development in the Campaign for Fair Food!
