see also:
chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/76065/index.php

do you know that what they have stole from you since 1945 for illegal wars is around 7 trillion dollars. That if the war mcahine was dismantled and it manufactury world and local poverty could be made history. The bosses ain't broke yet so don't beleive their lies, and take back you value added, labour is the source of all wealth. Marx said that.

SOA Watch has joined together with national and international religious, human rights, student, and labor organizations in the Alliance for Fair Food. The alliance works for, "fair wages and working conditions, fundamental human rights and an end to modern-day slavery in the agricultural industry."

Check out a short film of CIW at the November 2006 Vigil to Close the SOA (click on image at right).

SOA Wach supports the efforts of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) and we are grateful for their invitation to accompany them in this struggle, which is a struggle not just for better wages for the people of Immokalee but for a better world for all of us. We will follow CIW's lead in the effort to bring McDonald's on board to help end human rights abuses in its supply chain.

We understand that many immigrants to the United States are victims of U.S.-sponsored military training and atrocities in Latin America. In our fight to close the SOA, we continue to work towards a world that is free of suffering and violence. We recognize the SOA as being a part of the same racist system of violence and domination. We ally ourselves with the victims of military violence and their families in our effort to create a better world.

Many immigrants that come to the United States from Latin America and work in the tomato fields in Florida are victims of SOA graduates who carry out violence against civilian populations in their own countries. Right now in Colombia, paramilitary groups are terrorizing villages, which causes internal displacement and migration. But this is hardly a new phenomenon. In the 1980s, during the civil wars in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, military and paramilitary groups uprooted people from their homes, and many fled to the United States.

SOA Watch and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers have worked together for several years. SOA Watch activists have joined the CIW for demonstrations at the headquarters of Taco Bell's parent company in Louisville, Kentucky and on the Taco Bell Truth Tours, and CIW members traveled to Georgia to participate in the growing November actions to close the School of the Americas at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia. CIW has figured prominently in the annual November protests. In 2004, the story of exploitation in Florida's tomato fields served as the central theme of a spectacular, 500-person street theater that was preformed in front of 16,000 people. In 2005, after the Taco Bell Boycott campaign resulted in the historic agreement between CIW and Taco Bell, CIW members spoke from the stage to 19,000 people and addressed the links between militarism and the modern agricultural industry.

Justice will prevail. Just as it is only a matter of time until the School of the Americas will be shut down, there's also no doubt that fundamental rights to a decent wage and fair working conditions in the tomato fields of Florida will be won.

School of the Americas Watch

See the Alliance website at www.allianceforfairfood.org.

www.youtube.com/watch

From CIW's website: www.ciw-online.org

McDONALD’S USA AND ITS PRODUCE SUPPLIERS TO WORK WITH THE COALITION OF IMMOKALEE WORKERS

ATLANTA – The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), and McDonald’s USA, working with McDonald’s produce suppliers, today announced plans to work together to address wages and working conditions for the farmworkers who pick Florida tomatoes.

Beginning in the 2007 growing season, McDonald’s USA, through its produce suppliers, will pay an additional penny per pound for Florida tomatoes supplied to its U.S. restaurants. The increase will be paid directly to farmworkers harvesting tomatoes purchased by McDonald’s.

The CIW and McDonald’s produce suppliers will work together to develop a new code of conduct for Florida tomato growers as well as increase farmworker participation in monitoring supplier compliance. Farmworkers will also participate in investigating worker complaints and dispute resolution. Additionally, the CIW and McDonald’s produce suppliers will work together toward developing and implementing a credible third-party verification system.

“I welcome McDonald’s commitment to work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to improve the lives of the workers who supply their 13,000 U.S. restaurants with tomatoes,” said former United States President and founder of the Carter Center, Jimmy Carter. “This is a clear and welcome example of positive industry partnership. It demonstrates also McDonald’s leadership in social responsibility and CIW’s importance as a voice for farmworker rights. I encourage others to now follow the lead of McDonald’s and Taco Bell to achieve the much needed change throughout the entire Florida-based tomato industry.” Representatives from the Carter Center, based in Atlanta, helped facilitate the agreement with the Coalition and McDonald’s.

“Two years ago, our agreement with Yum Brands marked the first step toward a distant dream of ensuring human rights for workers in Florida’s fields,” said Lucas Benitez of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. “Today, with McDonald’s, we have taken another major step toward a world where we as farmworkers can enjoy a fair wage and humane working conditions in exchange for the hard and essential work we do every day. We are not thereyet, but we are getting there, and today’s agreement should send a strongmessage to the rest of the restaurant and supermarket industry that it isnow time to stand behind the food they sell from the field to the table.”

“We have always respected the CIW’s commitment to enhancing conditions for the workers,” said J.C. Gonzalez-Mendez, Senior Vice President, Supply Chain Management, McDonald’s USA. “We’ve made progress with our suppliers through our existing Florida tomato grower standards, which hold the growers accountable to standards higher than the industry, but that was only the beginning. We believe more needs to be done. McDonald’s produce suppliers are required to purchase tomatoes only from those growers that have adopted our standards.”

To foster further improvements throughout the tomato industry, the CIW and McDonald’s produce suppliers, with McDonald’s support, will also work together toward the development of a third-party mechanism that would carry out similar monitoring and investigative functions at the industry level. The third-party mechanism will be developed in such a way as to be expandable to include the participation of other willing members of the foodservice and retail food industry that buy Florida tomatoes.

CIW has ended its two-year campaign against McDonald’s and pledged to work with the company and its suppliers to drive systemic and sustainable changes in the Florida tomato industry.



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Not even in the top 100!

And it is very popular and profitable - it will just buy tomatoes from some other sweatshop country...

Forbes Investment Guru commentary on MCD

McDonald's on the Global 2000 2007 Rank: 200
2006: 179

see link: finapps.forbes.com/finapps/jsp/finance/compinfo/CIAtAGlance.jsp?tkr=MCD

Sales Rank: 283

Profits Rank: 147

Assets Rank: 485

Market Value: 140