Denver Takes Chipotle's "Food With Integrity" to Task

Denver Takes Chipotle's "Food With Integrity" to Task
By Clayton Dewey
Colorado Indymedia
December 1, 2007

After repeated attempts to talk with Chipotle representatives about their support of exploitation in the fields their tomatoes are picked, members and supporters of the Denver Fair Food Committee took their message to the public. Students, local faith leaders and other community leaders rallied in downtown Denver to protest Chipotle's hypocrisy of promoting an image of "Food With Integrity" while the workers who pick their produce toil in abysmal conditions.

Florida produces the vast majority of tomatoes in the country and it is in these fields that some of the most extreme cases of exploitation take place. Farmworkers picking tomatoes typically earn around $10,000 a year, haven't received a raise in nearly thirty years and are denied fundamental labor rights such as the right to organize and bargain collectively. In extreme cases bosses have withheld workers' pay, forcing them into a position of modern-day slavery.

Out of these conditions the Coalition of Immokalee Workers emerged, a grassroots organization of farmworkers in Immokalee, Florida. The group has led successful campaigns to guarantee better wages and safer working conditions from Yum Brands (parent company of Taco Bell) and McDonald's.

Chipotle, a Denver-based burrito company is a quick-growing company that attributes much of its success to its business model of "Food With Integrity." The company
boasts of purchasing food that is "unprocessed, seasonal, family-farmed, sustainable, nutritious, naturally raised, added hormone free, organic, and artisanal."

When the Coalition of Immokalee Workers learned about the company, they had Denver supporters attempt to meet with the company to tell them how they can help improve working conditions for the workers who pick their tomatoes. Instead, the company has sent the activists from one representative to another, failing to commit to a meeting and sending a clear message that the company is not interested at this point with working with the farmworkers. One member of the Denver Alliance for Fair Food, a group working in partnership with the CIW, finally caught up with Chipotle CEO Steve Ells and when asked about the CIW he said he wasn't convinced that the organization truly represented the workers or that the deplorable conditions existed.

Farmworkers and supporters have grown impatient with Chipotle's refusal to work with them and on December 1st they took their grievances public.

Outside of Chipotle's downtown Denver restaurant Robert McGoey, a member of the Student Farmworker Alliance, read aloud a statement sent from the CIW. The message thanked the Denver activists for "standing in solidarity with us" and stated that "Chipotle has very clear its willingness to use its purchasing power to influence its suppliers to promote the rights of animals and its desire to spread more sustainable forms of agriculture...However, Chipotle reamins indifferent to our rights as farmworkers."

Armed with tomato shaped signs with words such as "exploitation" emblazoned on them and burrito replicas that explained Chipotle's complicity in the abysmal conditions in the tomato fields, protesters picketed the restaurant.

The group then moved on to the headquartes of Chipotle. Since Chipotle executives were off for the weekend demands from the CIW were left for them to read when they return to work.

Most likely the demands will continue to fall on deaf ears Monday and as the demands promise,
"As long as Chipotle continues its current path of avoidance, the urgent need for reform in the fields requires us to intensify our call and action for justice."

People can join the campaign for Fair Food at Chipotle by contacting workers@ciw-online.org calling 239-657-8311 or visiting www.ciw-online.org