As the Fair Food Program continues to grow and change the lives of more and more farmworkers in new states and new crops, including tomatoes in Tennessee and fresh-cut sunflowers in California, we have exciting news to share on the Wendy’s Boycott front! This October and November, farmworker leaders from Immokalee will embark on a series of mini tours in three U.S. cities — San Francisco, Columbus and New York City — to raise consciousness about the urgent need for real, enforceable human rights protections for hundreds of thousands of essential farmworkers in corporate supply chains, and the unique power of the Fair Food Program to guarantee that farmworkers’ essential rights are monitored and respected.

Here is the schedule for the “Essential Rights for Essential Farmworkers” Tour:

San Francisco, October 2-16
Columbus, October 23-31
New York City, November 6-20

We’re counting on the Fair Food Nation to help us connect with community leaders in all three cities, so if you’re part of a campus, congregation or community group in San Francisco, Columbus or New York and would like to host a CIW farmworker leader for a presentation while we’re in your city, reach out to [email protected] to get it scheduled today.

The upcoming tours — the first major, on-the-ground campaign mobilization since the onset of the pandemic last spring — will put a spotlight on the enormous debt corporations like Wendy’s owe essential workers for ensuring their financial wellbeing during the unprecedented public health crisis, as well as the moral imperative for these companies to protect and care for these workers and their families in return, both today, as the crisis continues to upend our lives, and for the long run.

For far too long, farmworker poverty and abuse have plagued America’s fields. But 10 years ago, farmworkers in Immokalee created an antidote to that epidemic of exploitation — the Fair Food Program — that has brought life-changing protections to tens of thousands of farmworkers across the U.S. Yet, despite the FFP's unprecedented success, and the support of 14 of the world's largest food corporations,Wendy’s remains the only major fast-food chain still refusing to require these gold-standard human rights advances for farmworkers in its supply chain.

Wendy’s cannot be allowed to continue benefiting from the sacrifices of essential workers in the fields while refusing to join the only program proven to prevent human rights abuses in the U.S. agricultural industry. All workers should have a voice in shaping the conditions in which they work and access to an effective complaint process, free from retaliation, with comprehensive monitoring and real enforcement, for remedying violations of their rights and safety on the job.

The incalculable debt Wendy's owes to the Brown and Black essential farmworkers who have risked their lives on a daily basis during the COVID-19 pandemic to keep our nation’s food supply safe and secure begins with an accounting of the company's failure to ensure fairer pay and dignified working conditions for farmworkers long before the pandemic — and must end with Wendy's finally joining the Fair Food Program, once and for all.

Stay tuned as this fall’s “Essential Rights for Essential Farmworkers” Tour approaches for all the news, action dates, and locations in participating cities, and how you can support from afar if you’re based outside of San Francisco, Columbus or New York!