Movimiento Activista Social held their annual boycott against Wendy’s to raise awareness of the fast-food restaurant’s refusal to join the Fair Food Program.
The Fair Food Program is a pledge to protect farmworkers from sexual violence and exploitation as well as assure safe working conditions and fair wages.
“It protects women in the fields against exploitation and secures livable wages, and what Wendy’s does is instead of joining the Fair Food Program, they’ve decided to source their tomatoes from Mexico,” MAS Vice President Pepe Maciel said. “In doing so are able to bypass everything that the Fair Food Program has in place, and that’s something that they’ve done purposefully.”
MAS Co-President Secilia Lopez emphasized the importance of this boycott.
“It is a huge thing that they’ve been refusing to join this program for the last eight years,” Lopez said. “We want to make sure that we are spreading awareness and making this Wendy’s boycott so people don’t eat at Wendy’s and that Wendy’s finally recognizes that they need to treat their farm workers fairly.”
One of the themes of this boycott was the unity of the student body at the University of Idaho. Members of ASUI were in attendance, marching with MAS towards Wendy’s
“We have people from everywhere here supporting us and we personally invited a lot of ASUI members to be able to have them out here to gain perspective about some of the things that are important to us and as a student community,” Maciel said.
MAS Co-President Yasmin Tovar said that supporting MAS doesn’t require you to share the same background or be a member of the farmworker community.
“I’m not a daughter or affiliated with farmers, but I’m happy to stand here today and support people that have family members that are farmworkers because it is important,” Tovar said. “It’s really important to advocate for their better treatment.”
Both ASUI President Kallyn Mai and Vice President Katie Hettinga attended the speaker portion of the boycott.
“It’s powerful, you can hear them from all the way down the hill,” Mai said. “It’s disappointing to know that Wendy’s has not made any progress in over a year to sign the act.”
Hettinga said that she was inspired by the number of people who came in support of the group who aren’t directly affected.
“I think it’s incredibly important that MAS is leading the charge in educating around what needs to happen for farmworker rights,” Hettinga said. “It should not just be farmworkers that are leading the fight for farmworkers. We all need to take a collective part in protecting (them).”
Daniel V. Ramirez can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @DVR_Tweets