"… The fact remains that housing Wendy’s on our campus rewards the fast-food chain for evading responsibility and prioritizing profits over human rights. Meanwhile, our own University’s reputation is put at risk by Wendy’s reckless decision to turn a blind eye to abuses in its supply chain. Wendy’s has already faced condemnation for purchasing from farms with forced labor and exploitation – and when the next article comes, which it most certainly will, UNC-CH will also be associated with these horrific conditions.
The demand for university campuses to cut their contracts with Wendy’s in solidarity with farmworkers – the Boot the Braids Campaign – is an important part of the multi-dimensional national Wendy’s Boycott. Our goal is not to ensure that we alone can feel superficially content with ourselves by eating fairly-sourced tomatoes, like those from Aramark. Rather, it is imperative that UNC-CH take a leadership role in severing its business relationship with Wendy’s until the fast food company joins the Fair Food Program and takes enforceable measures in support of fundamental human rights, dignity, and justice. These kinds of student-led solidarity efforts have been successful before, as was the case with CIW’s seminal Taco Bell Boycott over a decade ago. And earlier this month, news broke that the University of Michigan has already removed Wendy’s from campus.
We, the Student/Farmworker Alliance at UNC-CH, are asking you, Mr. Guskiewicz, to use your power to call for the removal of Wendy’s from campus until the corporation signs onto the Fair Food Program. We are also requesting that you make a public statement in response to this letter, communicating your position on the issue by the first of March. As a well-respected public institution, we have a responsibility to do everything in our power to create a more just society and change the way major corporations with whom we do business treat those at every level of their supply chains. It is time for UNC-CH to demonstrate that we are standing on the right side of history: Firmly in support of promoting human rights across the country and the world, and standing in solidarity with those who feed the nation: farmworkers."
And, we are very excited to announce that students, community members, and farmworkers will not be alone: Human rights leader and stalwart Fair Food supporter, Kerry Kennedy, the President of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, will be joining the action in Chapel Hill on March 5th! Ahead of the march and rally, Kerry penned her own thoughtful letter to Chancellor Guskiewicz, urging him to listen to UNC students:
"Following in the footsteps of my father and mother, I have marched alongside farmworkers in search of dignity and respect in America’s fields for decades. Almost exactly 16 years ago, I had the honor presenting the 2003 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. In a gala ceremony on Capitol Hill — including a speech by the late Senator Edward Kennedy and a letter of congratulations from former President Jimmy Carter — Lucas Benitez, Julia Gabriel, and Romeo Ramirez of the CIW were recognized for their courageous work fighting modern-day slavery in the agricultural industry and for their leadership of the national Taco Bell boycott. Only a year later, Taco Bell became the first company to sign a Fair Food Agreement, displaying admirable leadership as the first fast food chain to take this step towards ensuring human rights protections in their supply chain.
In the following decade and a half, all other fast food chains followed suit. Except for Wendy’s. Today, I write to express my grave concern that the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill is continuing to do business with Wendy’s. As you know, there is a thriving national boycott of Wendy’s due to the corporation’s unconscionable refusal to join the Presidential Medal-winning Fair Food Program (FPP). The FFP is a groundbreaking partnership among farmworkers, farmers, and 14 major food retailers, including McDonald’s, Burger King, and Walmart, and in 2014 was heralded as “the best workplace-monitoring program” in the U.S. on the front page of the New York Times. It has been proven to be the most effective human rights initiative to improve farmworkers’ wages and ensure humane working conditions in the fields. In fact, the FFP has brought these transformative changes to your own state of North Carolina.
I urge you to take decisive action in support of the Fair Food Program and farmworkers’ human rights more broadly by ending UNC Chapel Hill’s business relationship with Wendy’s."
Ready to pick up some art and join the action yourself? Here are the details!
When: March 5th, 2:00 PM
Where: 101 Weaver St, Carrboro, NC
