Critical Mass Akron : Cleveland IMC (((i)))

Critical Mass-- a bicycle party/protest-- is happening this Friday March 28th in downtown Akron. Meet at Grace Park at 5pm. Bring yer bike. See ya in the streets.

* * http://www.ciw-online.org
Buenas!! The reason for sending you this email is to invite you and to ask for your help in a bike tour that i plan to start on Friday June 6 in front of the YUM!!
headquarters located in Lousville Kentuky and ending in front of the Taco Bell head quarters in Irvine California. We will be doing stops in between to give presentations on the situation here in Immokalee. This trip was actually the idea of a student from Maryland but it tourns out that because of unexpected circumstances he is no longer able to begin the tour, therefore I have decided to continue with it and hopefully find another person or persons to ride with me. So who am I well, my name is Lupe and i'm writting you from Immokalee Fl. I've been here since march as a volunteer after taking part in a fast that was done in front of the taco bell headquarters with the CIW i decided to come to Immokalee and dedicate my time to them and well now this bike tour is happening and i've assigned myself the job of coordinating it but I do need your help because i've never actually done anything like this before, I really want this to happen because I feel that in doing this we could bring alot of attention and alot more support to the boycott tacobell campaign. I don't know if you have heard of the Taco bell boycott? but it deals with the tomatoe pickers here in Immokalee and their demand to taco bell to pay one cent more per pound of tomatoe they buy and for that extra one cent that they pay to be distributed amongst the workers. I've included here some information on what the coalition is and what it does. You can get more complete info by visiting the website. But if you have any help that you can give me like routes that are safest to take, fundraising, lodging, etc...
The CIW is a community-based worker organization. The members are largely Latino, Haitian, and Mayan Indian immigrants working in low-wage jobs throughout the state of Florida.
We strive to build our strength as a community on a basis of reflection and analysis, constant attention to coalition building across ethnic divisions, and an ongoing investment in leadership development to help workers from the base of our community continually develop their skills in community education and organization.
From this basis we fight for, among other things: a fair wage for the work we do, more respect on the part of our bosses and the industries where we work, better and cheaper housing, stronger laws and stronger enforcement against those who would violate workers' rights, the right to organize on our jobs without fear of retaliation, and an end to indentured servitude in the fields.
The CIW is based in Immokalee, but our impact reaches beyond the Southwest Florida area to cover the state of Florida as a whole. Southwest Florida is the state's most important center for agricultural production, and Immokalee is the state's largest farmworker community. As such, the majority of our members are farmworkers who spend 8-9 months of the year here in Southwest Florida then travel north on the season during the summer months.
Many local residents, and thus many of our members, move out of agriculture and into other low wage industries that are important in our area, including the construction, nursery, and tourist industries. Virtually all of our members are low-income.
This campaign, launched in October of 1997, has brought about several historic changes for thousands of Florida farmworkers.
Combining community-wide work stoppages with intense public pressure -- including an unprecedented month-long hunger strike by six of our members in 1998 and an historic 230-mile march from Ft. Myers to Orlando in 2000 -- the campaign ended over twenty years of stagnant wages in the tomato industry.
In 2001, we launched a new phase of the campaign, announcing a national boycott of Taco Bell for its refusal to meet with farmworkers and discuss its role, as a major buyer of Florida tomatoes, in perpetuating farmworker poverty.
Anti-Slavery Campaign - The CIW's Anti-Slavery campaign is an innovative worker-based campaign to eliminate modern-day slavery in the tomato fields and orange groves of the East Coast agricultural industry. In 21st century slavery operations based on debt bondage, workers are held against their will through violence and threats of violence, ranging from intimidation to beatings to pistol-whippings. In the past five years, the CIW has uncovered, investigated, and assisted the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice in prosecuting in three large, multi-state slavery operations based out of Florida, and acted in as consultants on two others. In those few short years, our efforts have resulted in: freedom for thousands of workers in debt bondage, the successful prosecution of various agricultural employers, the education of local and federal law enforcement, the development of a growing base of aware and committed worker activists, and stronger federal laws against trafficking in human beings.
This campaign, launched during the 1996-1997 season, began with a 500-worker march to a local crewleader's house to protest the beating of one of our members here in Immokalee. Since then, it has evolved into a nationally-recognized program focusing on the elimination of modern-day slavery in Florida's fields.
Other accomplishments include... the establishment of a highly successful consumer cooperative, providing staple foods at nearly wholesale prices and breaking the hold of the traditionally overpriced local market; a growing, active, multi-ethnic membership base; weekly radio programs reaching thousands of workers in both Spanish and Haitian Creole; an innovative program of education and leadership development including participatory video, street art, popular theater, and community festivals; an annual scholarship program for the children of local workers and Latino cultural festival in conjunction with an area Spanish-language radio station... and much more!

I am trying to get the word out about a new bike that is on the market. it's called Osobike. You can see it a [URL] http://www.osobike.com[/URL} Thanks, Shane

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