The activists entered the restaurant on Eddy Street and presented a letter to the manager. After the manager accepted the letter the activists moved peacefully out of the restaurant and to the sidewalk, where they marched and chanted. This was part of a series of similar actions covered in part here and here. In accepting the letter, the manager of the Wendy’s kept the disruption of business within the restaurant to a minimum.

According to the Fair Food Program website,

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ (CIW) Fair Food Program is a unique partnership among farmers, farmworkers, and retail food companies that ensures humane wages and working conditions for the workers who pick fruits and vegetables on participating farms. It harnesses the power of consumer demand to give farmworkers a voice in the decisions that affect their lives, and to eliminate the longstanding abuses that have plagued agriculture for generations.

The Program has been called ‘the best workplace-monitoring program’ in the US in the New York Times, and ‘one of the great human rights success stories of our day’ in the Washington Post, and has won widespread recognition for its unique effectiveness from a broad spectrum of human rights observers, from the United Nations to the White House.

According to the activists, of “the five largest fast food corporations in the country — McDonald’s, Subway, Burger King, Taco Bell, and Wendy’s — Wendy’s is the only one to not yet sign onto the Fair Food Program.”

In a release announcing the action, the Brown Student Labor Alliance said, “With 14 food retailers now part of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Fair Food Program, we are seeing incredible changes — from a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment and modern-day slavery, to access to shade, water, and bathrooms, to a real voice on the job — made real not only in Florida, but across state-lines. Just a few months ago, the CIW traveled up and down the eastern seaboard of the United States — Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey — carrying out worker-to-worker education sessions about these new rights for the first time ever with thousands of workers beyond Florida. With these changes, there is now a deep urgency for reinforcement and expansion of the Program, which will only be possible through more retailers joining — yet, corporations like Wendy’s and Publix continue to utterly deny their responsibility to farmworkers.”

Fast food employees, restaurant workers and labor allies rallied outside the Wendy’s restaurant at 771 Warwick Ave in Warwick around noon as part of a national effort to kick off a year-long $15 minimum wage campaign ahead of next year’s presidential elections. Nearly 100 people gathered in the parking lot of Wendy’s, where the management had locked the doors ahead of the protests and only served meals through the drive-thru window.

Led by outgoing Rhode-Island Jobs with Justice executive director Jesse Strecker, workers chanted and marched around the building, finally settling in front for a series of speeches from various workers and advocates “all the way down the food chain.”

Long time Wendy’s worker and minimum wage advocate Jo-Ann Gesterling spoke not only about fair wages, but about wages stolen when management forces workers to work through their breaks, lack of accountability in the management structure, and other issues fast food workers deal with on a daily basis.

Demonstrators were not only demanding $15 an hour, fair treatment and a union, they were also demanding that Wendy’s join the the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Fair Food Program (FFP). Attentive readers will remember that the Brown Student Labor Alliance lead a protest in October around the FFP, described as a “ground-breaking model for worker-led social responsibility based on a unique collaboration among farmworkers, Florida tomato growers and 14 participating buyers.” It is “the first comprehensive, verifiable and sustainable approach to ensuring better wages and working conditions in America’s agricultural fields.”

Emelio Garcia, a former employee of Teriyaki House Restaurant in downtown Providence spoke about not having been paid for work he did at the restaurant. Wage theft is a story sadly common in Rhode Island, as more and more employees stand up and demand the wages that have been stolen from them by employers. Garcia says that he was docked for two hours of pay a day for breaks he was never actually allowed to take.

Flor Salazar, who worked at Café Atlantic and was owed thousands of dollars in unpaid wages, was allegedly assaulted by owner Juan Noboa with a baseball bat when she and a group of workers confronted Noboa at his home Halloween morning. “We are tired of having our work stolen, we are tired of being disrespected in our workplace,” said Salazar, “It’s enough.”

The final speaker was a not a restaurant worker but Magdalene Smith, a CNA working at a Pawtucket nursing home. “This is not a fight for just restaurants, but for everybody,” said Smith. “Everybody deserves $15. We work hard.”

In addition to Jobs With Justice and the Brown Student/Labor Alliance the event was sponsored by 1199 SEIU Rhode Island, Fuerza Laboral/Power of Workers and Restaurant Opportunities Center of Rhode Island.

Most of the restaurant patrons seemed okay with the surprise protest, some even joining in with the chants, but one family became extremely agitated. A man told me that if I turned the camera towards his kids he would assault me. The same man approached the protesters, took a sign from one of them and ripped it in half before tossing it on the floor. He was very angry.

The protest was part of the Student/Farmworker Alliance‘s protest, “Schooling Wendy’s National Week of Action” intended to pressure Wendy’s into joining the FFP, described as a “ground-breaking model for worker-led social responsibility based on a unique collaboration among farmworkers, Florida tomato growers and 14 participating buyers.” It is “the first comprehensive, verifiable and sustainable approach to ensuring better wages and working conditions in America’s agricultural fields,” say organizers.

According to their website, of “the five largest fast food corporations in the country — McDonald’s, Subway, Burger King, Taco Bell, and Wendy’s — Wendy’s is the only one to not yet sign onto the Fair Food Program.”

The program works by having companies pay one extra penny per pound of produce purchased. That extra penny goes into a fund that allows for six benefits to farmworkers, according to FFP’s Code of Conduct:

1. A pay increase supported by a “penny per pound” premium paid by Participating Buyers;
2. Zero tolerance for forced labor, sexual assault, and other abusive conduct;
3. Worker-to-worker education sessions carried out by the CIW on the farms and on company time to ensure workers are aware of their new rights and responsibilities;
4. A worker-triggered complaint resolution mechanism comprising of a timely investigation, corrective action plans, and if necessary, suspension of a farm’s Participating Grower status, and thereby its ability to sell to Participating Buyers;
5. Health and Safety Committees on every farm to give workers a structured voice in the shape of their work environment; and
6. Ongoing auditing of farms to insure compliance with each element of the FFP.

Organizers are asking people to boycott Wendy’s until the corporation signs on to the FFP.

Brian Moynihan’s turn as this year’s guest of the Darrell West Lecture Series was interesting for all the wrong reasons.

Moynihan is the CEO of Bank of America, an institution suffering from an abundance of controversies. The lecture series “was founded to provide an open forum on the intersection between religion and politics” and in the past has hosted Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Elaine Pagels. Moynihan was invited to talk about his philanthropic work in the context of being the CEO of one of the most powerful financial institutions in the world. The event was billed as a discussion about “the role of philanthropy and corporate social responsibility” in today’s society.

Outside the Central Congregational Church where the event was held, police shooed away peaceful protesters handing out informational flyers critical of Moynihan and Bank of America. The Brown Student Labor Alliance’s Stoni Tomson sent a letter acknowledging the churches “best intentions” in inviting Moynihan while decrying “Bank of America’s track record of predatory lending schemes that targeted people of color which directly contributed to the financial crisis of 2008, the financing of ecocidal practices like mountaintop removal mining, and the exploitative treatment of its call-center workers.”

Tomson said, “We believe that Moynihan’s lecture on Corporate Social Responsibility will inevitably be fraught with hypocrisy that effectively makes congregation members pawns in a Bank of America Public Relations Stunt.”

The interview conducted by Darrell West avoided negativity and focused on Moynihan’s philanthropic efforts in Haiti, and the questions too often allowed Moynihan to deliver corporate spiels that sounded more like advertisements for Bank of America than serious considerations of the issues involved. For instance, in answer to a question regarding the controversial nature of large financial institutions like Bank of America in the light of the financial meltdown, Moynihan talked about the excellent ratings the bank receives from satisfied customers, saying “We do lots of customer research. Our customer satisfaction is as high today as it was in 2007.”

When asked about the role of faith in his life, Moynihan invoked the Golden Rule in a way I never thought possible when he claimed that the principle of being customer focused in business “is not all that different from treating others as you want to be treated yourself.”

During the question and answer period things got edgier as Central Congregational Church member Paul Armstrong said, “Let me quote a few lines from a press release issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission last August as they settled a $245 million case which was part of a larger $16.5 billion settlement which Bank of America reached with the Department of Justice to resolve various investigations involving violations of laws relating to the sale of toxic mortgage backed securities. The regional director of the SEC’s office said, ‘Bank of America failed to make accurate and complete disclosure to investors and its illegal conduct kept investors in the dark. Requiring an admission of wrongdoing as part of Bank of America’s agreement to resolve the SEC charges filed today provides an additional level of accountability for its violation of the federal securities laws.’

“My question to you is this,” continued Armstrong, “What is the relationship between the illegal conduct the organization you lead has engaged in and your personal philanthropy? Is philanthropy morally tainted if it’s funded by illegal acts? Can philanthropy redeem wrongdoing behind the fortunes you make possible?”

Tough questions, which Moynihan awkwardly sidestepped as he maintained that it would take days to walk the audience through the complexities of the mortgage crisis. He then claimed that Bank of America “ended up trying to help people keep their homes,” before adding “We do lot’s of good work… it’s all consistent with what we do [as a company.]”

The kind of good work Bank of America is known for can be seen in this Huffington Post piece, where “former employees said they were told to falsify electronic records and string homeowners along in foreclosure as long as possible.” I suppose that’s one way to keep people in their homes.

Moynihan also backed away from accepting a “level of accountability” for Bank of America’s illegal actions, saying that his company only settled with the government because it was the cheaper course of action. “We settled,” said Moynihan, “because it was in the best interest of or customers to do so.”

Armstrong’s question deserves better answers from proponents of corporate philanthropy. Serious questions have been raised about the “charitable industrial complex” with even multi-millionaires such as Peter Buffett, Warren Buffett’s son, asking, “Is progress really Wi-Fi on every street corner? No. It’s when no 13-year-old girl on the planet gets sold for sex. But as long as most folks are patting themselves on the back for charitable acts, we’ve got a perpetual poverty machine. “

If there is a perpetual poverty machine, then Bank of America is a huge part of it, because while Moynihan’s efforts in providing education for exceptional Haitian youth are indeed laudable, the CEO, making well over $13 million a year, runs a company in which one-third of its bank tellers rely on public assistance and “has had more complaints filed with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau than any other American financial institution.”

Working conditions at the Bank of America call center are so bad there’s an online petition demanding “adequate job training that keeps jobs and customers safe” that everyone reading this should consider signing.

I’d like to believe that Moynihan was invited so as to expose the hypocrisy and self-serving nature of so-called corporate philanthropy, but unfortunately, I think the invitation was sincere, and therefore misguided.