TAKE ACTION NOW: Email Wendy’s executives ahead of Tuesday’s annual shareholder meeting!

TODAY: Flood Wendy’s Board of Directors’ inboxes with support for farm labor justice!

Tomorrow, June 5th, Wendy’s executives will be meeting with shareholders at their headquarters in Dublin, Ohio — and whether they like it or not, Fair Food is going to be squarely at the top of the agenda.  As we write, dozens of farmworker families are on the road to Columbus, readying to join scores of allies from across the Midwest at Wendy’s doorstep for a high-energy protest calling on the fast-food giant to join the Fair Food Program.

Whether you’re headed to Columbus or reading this at home, you can add your voice to the growing Fair Food chorus today.  We’ve proven time and time again that even the world’s largest corporations can be held accountable for their failure to protect the human rights of farmworkers in their supply chains — but it takes concerted action to make ourselves heard.

Show your unwavering support for farmworkers’ human rights by sending an email to Wendy’s Board of Directors today!

Tomorrow, farmworkers and their allies — many of whom fasted for five days in frigid temperatures outside of Board Chairman Nelson Peltz’s offices just a few months ago — will confront the fast food giant’s top executives face-to-face, including Mr. Peltz.  Today, YOU can amplify farmworkers’ message, and make sure Wendy’s knows that the women and men who harvest our food are not alone in this fight.

Help us reach our goal of over 400 emails in the next 24 hours.  If everyone reading this message sent an email right now, we’d send ten times that many.  Here’s how:

1. Click here to head over to our action page where you’ll find an email form
2. Add your name, contact information, and a short message
3. Hit send!

And then — please share the action far and wide!

Civil Eats on Fair Food Program: “Meet the Farmworkers Leading the #MeToo Fight For Workers Everywhere”…

http://ciw-online.org/blog/2018/05/civil-eats-on-fair-food-program-meet-the-farmworkers-leading-the-metoo-fight-for-workers-everywhere/

2018 summer protest season kicks off with a 70+ action in Sarasota!

CIW’s Silvia Perez: “We have fought for decades to protect the dignity of the women and men who harvest our food — and we are winning, through the Fair Food Program. Wendy’s cannot erase the hard-earned progress we’ve made…”

As the tomato harvest winds down in Immokalee and the academic semester draws to a close for student allies, the Fair Food Nation isn’t going on vacation. Far from it – farmworkers and allies have their eyes trained on victory in the Wendy’s Boycott. This summer, let’s turn up the heat on the fast-food holdout!

With the jam-packed schedule of big summer protests and national calls to action we have lined up so far, Wendy’s will be hard-pressed to ignore our clarion call for real, worker-driven social responsibility. Vacuous top-down corporate codes of conduct just won’t cut it any longer.

On the ground, things have already kicked off. Allies around the country are marshalling their networks to pen hundreds of letters to Wendy’s headquarters while mobilizing to show up in-person to the annual shareholder meeting in Dublin, OH on June 5. (Want to take part? Check out our call to action!)

Today, we bring you a report from the first sweaty, sunny summer protest of the season in Sarasota, Florida!

Last Sunday morning, dozens of farmworker men, women, and children hopped into vans to journey to the paradisiacal gulf coast community two short hours north of Immokalee that has, over the years, become a veritable Fair Food stronghold.

Signature flags and signs in tow, CIW members joined members of Sarasota Fair Food, who co-organized the protest with students from New College, at a highly-trafficked Wendy’s restaurant. Youth and students, also hailing from Riverview High School and Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, didn’t miss a beat to show up strong despite the home stretch of finals and graduation.

The local faith community, too, joined the spirited picket, as “Tomato Rabbi” Michael Werbow of Temple Beth Sholom and his family raised their voices along with faith leaders and congregants from the Sarasota Quaker Meeting (whose stunning banner cannot be missed!), the United Methodist Women of the South West District, and the Unitarian Universalist Church of Sarasota.

While clouds shielded protestors from the worst of the tropical sun, drivers and passers-by took flyers and honked in support, lifting the spirits of the protestors – if not the Wendy’s store manager, who surreptitiously kept vigil from behind a bush near the front of the restaurant for most of the hour-long demonstration.

The protest ended on a high note, with a firm chorus of “We’ll be back!” sounding out the end of the lunchtime rush! Indeed, we will be back for a circuit of Florida protests in Tampa, Orlando, Miami, and Naples/Ft. Myers in the months of June through September. Stay tuned for dates!

We’ll end with this clip from WWSB ABC 7 News, featuring strong student and farmworker testimonies for why Wendy’s should reverse course and, finally, join the Fair Food Program:

ACTION ALERT: Look us in the eye, Wendy’s! Farmworker women and men to confront Wendy’s Board at shareholder meeting…

We are one month away from Wendy’s annual shareholder meeting, in which the company’s Board of Directors — including Board Chair Nelson Peltz — and executive leaders will gather with shareholders to share updates, graphs, and rosy indicators from the fast food giant’s past year of accomplishments and milestones. But rest assured, shareholders will get an earful about much more than the company’s annual earnings. 

Because, since the last annual shareholder meeting, the national Wendy’s Boycott has not stopped growing… on the contrary, it is stronger than ever.  Just two months ago, two thousand supporters joined the Time’s Up Wendy’s March, taking to the streets of New York City alongside nearly one hundred workers and consumers who fasted for five days outside the offices of Nelson Peltz.  Across the U.S., over a hundred thousand consumers have committed to boycott Wendy’s until the fast-food giant joins the Fair Food Program.  Meanwhile, Wendy’s has been slammed on social media and in the press, with news of the boycott reaching tens of millions more consumers as Hollywood stars like Alyssa Milano and Amy Schumer defended CIW following the fast food chain’s offensive comments about farmworker women “exploiting” the #MeToo movement.

And, in the last year, Wendy’s has doubled down on its dubious and expensive public relations strategy of disparaging the Fair Food Program and farmworkers themselves, and at the same time, the fast food chain has attempted to pull the wool over the eyes of consumers (and its own shareholders) with a sham supplier Code of Conduct, which, executives would have you believe, is strong enough to combat the widely-documented gross human rights abuses in their supplier of choice, the Mexican produce industry. On June 5th, farmworkers and their allies will confront the company’s series of unscrupulous actions — from declaring that farmworker women are “exploiting” the #MeToo movement to refusing to support a program that PBS Frontline called “unique in the country” in its ability to fight sexual harassment — and will not leave without an answer: Why will Wendy’s not join its competitors on the right side of history, and sign a Fair Food Agreement?

And for executives like Nelson Peltz, there will be no more glass walls behind which to hide.

To make this action a success, we need allies around the country to step up in support! Let’s use the month of May to keep the pressure building on Wendy’s head of the June showdown!

Here’s how you can take action:

1) Make your plans to join farmworkers, Ohio Fair Food and allies from across the country on Tuesday, June 5, for the major protest outside of the annual shareholder meeting!  Housing will be provided for those coming from out of town.  Get in touch with us at organize@allianceforfairfood.org for support in planning the trip!  Join the farmworker community of Immokalee in speaking truth to power, and standing strong in this critical moment of the campaign.

2) Commit your support to paper and send a hand-written letter to Wendy’s CEO Todd Penegor and Board Chairman Nelson Peltz, then organize your community, congregation, or student group to do the same (make sure to post a photo to social media of your letter)!  Send your own powerful message to Wendy’s about why consumers have joined with farmworkers in this movement. Download more instructions here to get set to send your letter to One Dave Thomas Blvd., Dublin, OH 43017.

After such an eventful spring, there is no room left for doubt: the national Wendy’s boycott is building steadily towards the inevitable tipping point we’ve seen with numerous other massive corporations in the past 17 successful years of the Campaign for Fair Food:  This is Wendy’s moment to step back, take stock, and change course by joining the Fair Food Program — or, face a boycott that is continuing to grow stronger every day, without end in sight.  Let’s send the message to Wendy’s leadership: In the 21st century, consumers demand more from companies where they buy their food — we demand real social responsibility, not more public relations smoke and mirrors!

TAKE ACTION: Next week, support student-led "It's On Wendy's" national mobilization in 20+ cities!

From New York to Columbus, OH and beyond, allies in 20+ cities across the country the have their plans in motion to send a clear message to Wendy's this April 5: It's on you, Wendy's, to stop spreading misleading statements about the CIW and instead join all your fast-food competitors in the Fair Food Program, the only proven program to guarantee respect for farmworker women's human rights.

Find out how you can join an action by sending an email to organize@allianceforfairfood.org. Students are leading many actions.Community and faith-based allies are called upon to support students' actions, or plan your own if there isn't one already taking place in your town!

From the Student/Farmworker Alliance:

Following the incredible Freedom Fast outside the hedge fund offices of Wendy’s Board Chair Nelson Peltz in New York City, Wendy’s took a desperate stab at a public response.

And miserably failed. 

On Wednesday, Wendy’s Director of Corporate Communications Heidi Schauer (if she still holds this position) went on record in the Huffington Post accusing CIW farmworker women leaders of “trying to exploit the positive momentum that has been generated by and for women in the #MeToo and Time’s Up movement to advance their interests.”

It didn’t take long for the Internet to clap back at Wendy’s disgusting accusation. Most notably, Hollywood actress Alyssa Milano slammed the fast-food giant on Facebook over the outrageous comment:  

“Hey, @Wendys! If you really want to get on the wrong side of the #TimesUp movement, keep using our name to attack and belittle farmworker women who are fighting to keep themselves and their sisters safe from rape in the fields.”

Wendy’s shameless attack on farmworker women not only hit a nerve with leaders in the entertainment industry, but unsurprisingly sparked outrage among students and young people, the prized demographic the company brazenly flaunts as its target market. 

And so, it’s on us — the brilliant grassroots network of students and young people that fuel action in CIW’s national Wendy’s Boycott — to mobilize our campuses in support of farmworker women’s rights. 

Join the Student/Farmworker Alliance on April 5 in expanding the “red-dot” campaign, where students are marking campus maps with red dots representing an act of sexual violence, to include Wendy’s restaurants. Organize a march to Wendy’s, and deliver a big red dot to the local manager as a badge of shame for the fast-food giant’s refusal to end sexual violence in its supply chain by joining the Fair Food Program. 

Reach out to us at organize@sfalliance.org for an organizing kit to help plan your action, including a sample press release, social media resources and a creative actions guide. And be sure to check back next week for a map of confirmed actions near you. 

It’s on, Wendy’s!