CIW Web 2.0

New Technology Infrastructure; New Communications Technology; Database upgrade

www.ciw-online.org

$10,000

Context
Farmworkers in Southwest Florida toil from dusk to dawn picking two tons of tomatoes to earn between $40 and $50 in a day. Farmworkers face working conditions ranging from sub-poverty rages to physical and verbal abuse from bosses to the most extreme cases of modern-day slavery. Farmworkers do not enjoy many of the establish labor protections of other industries. Farmworkers have no right to overtime, no right to sick and vacation leave, and no right to organize. The tomatoes Immokalee farmworkers' pick ultimately end up in the Big Macs and Whoppers that consumers enjoy across the nation. Large corporate buyers use their immense purchasing power to dictate the realities of the tomato market. Through large-volume buying practices, large corporate buyers demand the cheapest tomatoes possible putting intense downward pressure on suppliers to keep costs lows. Tomato-picking wages have been stagnant since 1980, at 40 to 45 cents per bucket, indeed keeping costs low.

For this, we continue to work on several fronts: at the community level, building consciousness and broad-based leadership; at the regional level, training law enforcement agents and social service providers on best practices for addressing modern-day slavery; and at the national level, expanding our campaign to eliminate sweatshops and slavery in the agri-food industry.

In April 2001, we launched the first-ever farmworker boycott of a major fast-food company with our national boycott of Taco Bell, in which we called on the fast-food giant to take responsibility for the human rights violations in the fields where its tomatoes are grown and picked. In March 2005, we won the Taco Bell boycott. With this victory, we established important new precedents for social responsibility in the fast-food industry with regard to farm labor conditions in its agricultural supply chain, including:

• the first-ever direct, ongoing payment by a fast-food industry leader to farmworkers in its supply chain to address sub-standard farm labor wages (nearly doubling the percentage of the final retail price that goes to the workers who pick the produce);

• the first-ever enforceable Code of Conduct for agricultural suppliers in the fast-food industry (which includes the CIW, a worker-based organization, as part of the investigative body for monitoring worker complaints);

• market incentives for agricultural suppliers willing to respect their workers’ human rights, even when those rights are not guaranteed by law (including rights such as overtime and protections for the right to organize);

• 100% transparency for Taco Bell’s tomato purchases in Florida (the agreement commits Taco Bell to buy only from Florida growers who agree to the pass-through and to document and monitor the pass-through, providing complete records of Taco Bell’s Florida tomato purchases and growers’ wage records to the CIW. (This will allow us to determine whether Taco Bell did or did not purchase tomatoes from a given supplier when future slavery prosecutions arise).

The primary purpose of our current work is the expansion of these principles of corporate accountability to the rest of the fast-food industry. As more industry leaders join a growing coalition of major buyers for social responsibility, larger and wider raises in pickers’ wages will be possible, and our ability to demand more far-ranging change in regard to farmworkers’ labor rights will increase exponentially.

Our overall organizing will continue to incorporate the proven ingredients for success: Extraordinary farmworker leadership based on intensive community education and leadership development; 2) A strong and growing network of allies from across the spectrum, from archbishops to anarchists, taking action side-by-side with workers from Immokalee; 3) A successful anti-slavery campaign with the established track record and credibility to provide the unimpeachable argument for supply chain accountability in the fast-food industry; 4) Effective outreach to the mainstream media combined with a creative program of media production that allows us to tell our story in our own terms to millions of people – allies, journalists, academics, fast-food executives, and others – across the country.

Our CIW Media Center provides us with the tools to communicate both within the Immokalee community and with our growing national network of allies. Through our website and video production, we are able to tell the story of our struggle and of the reality of farmworker living and working conditions in our own words -- a powerful tool in building awareness and solidarity in support of the boycott. Videos planned for this year include a community-based video on what the victory means for wages, as well as a general video on the boycott victory for larger public consumption. Our websites, www.ciw-online.org and www.sfalliance.org, had been absolutely essential in reaching and communicating news, action alerts, and the story of Immokalee to Taco Bell boycott supporters across the country. It has only grown in importance since that time.

During the Taco Bell Boycott, the support of young people and students proved pivotal in the Coalition of Immokalee Workers' eventual victory. Students organizing through the Student/Farmworker Alliance booted or blocked 22 Taco Bell locations from operating on high school and university campuses across the country. SFA's network represents the very people Taco Bell, McDonald's, Chipotle and others in the fast food industry consider to be their target market. Taco Bell, in fact, labeled 18-to 24-year-olds as the “New Hedonism Generation,” while McDonald's refers to the same demographic as their new advertising “sweet spot.”1

Fast-food corporations will go to great lengths to reach the 18-to 24-year-old demographic. McDonald's annual advertising budget approaches $1.5 billion, less and less of which is spent on billboards and TV ads. The ability of corporations to reach this demographic through traditional advertising means is, in fact, diminishing. Two months ago, online publication The Consumerist outed two McDonald's flogs (or fake blogs) where McDonald's floggers posed as real customers in order to promote the company's Monopoly game.2 In October, industry journal Nation's Restaurant News reported on McDonald's new text message-delivered coupons. McDonald's aimed the text coupons at their “sweet spot” and timed their delivery at 2:00AM—the fabled bar rush hour. Chipotle Mexican Grill recently sponsored the 30 Seconds of Fame contest encouraging college students to create independent 30-second shorts that represented Chipotle's “personality,” with the winner taking home a cash prize of $10,000. Chipotle distributed the contest over YouTube and the first-place winner's creation was viewed 8 million times. The contest garnered an estimated 17.3 million views in total.

McDonald's and the rest of the fast food industry are cunningly advertising to 18-to 24-year-olds through social networking and personal technologies, attempting to, in McDonald's words, reinvent their brand as “forever young” and therefore forever hip. The successful “Boot the Bell” campaign proved that young people are not the mindless consumers that corporations view them as. Rather, young people—equipped with education, tools, and organization—will peel back McDonald's brand to reveal the reality of exploitation in the fields that lays behind it. With this knowledge and the right tools at their disposal, McDonald's “sweet spot” will become a strategic sore spot as students and youth take action in solidarity with the CIW's “Campaign for Fair Food” demanding McDonald's and other fast-food corporations meaningfully dialog with them to expand and deepen the historic precedents of the Taco Bell Boycott agreement.

When we participated in Progressive Technology Project's CoaTI, we were exposed to new technologies and implementation ideas. We want to incorporate what we learned into our organizing. We are requesting a grant to develop the Coalition of Immokalee Workers “Web 2.0” complete with a flash animation and content-management codebase in order to push our technological limits and change the consciousness of young consumers across the world:

CIW Web 2.0

• Viral and Inspiring Flash Animation
The animation would serve to tell the CIW's core story of the reality of farm labor in a fresh, compelling format. The new format will have the ability to worm its way through the internet using social networks to maximize diffusion. This diffusion would drive traffic to the site for supporters to use other, action-oriented features. The animation would also hype viewers for an impending escalation in the McDonald's campaign. Viral banners and buttons will be created to promote the flash and CIW Web 2.0.

• Integrated Database
By using a content-management system we can easily database interested supporters' information. Information would be automatically added to our database for listserv additions or organizing material requests. The CIW has approached Radical Designs and is considering using their Activist Mobilization Platform of content management tools.

• Email Action Alerts
In the past, the CIW has used other organizations' software for mass email action alerts. This new website would allow the CIW to employ this tactic in-house. Thus far, email action alerts have been a little-used, yet potentially powerful tool in the Campaign for Fair Food.

• Video Share Page
The CIW and its allies have produced 3 feature length films and 6 short films. Thousands of viewers have watched the films on social networking sites such as YouTube and Free Speech TV's vlog. The Video Share page will offer film downloads, a viewer room, and ability to share them with other networks. We also see video sharing shifting towards RSS feeds and want to create one of our own, potentially through VideoBomb and Democracy Player.

• Audio Share Page
The website would also provide a portal for the CIW's low-power FM community radio station—Radio Conciencia—available for live streaming around the world. The CIW's and SFA's Public Service Announcements and special reports from the field would be available for download, podcast, and easy sharing.

• Text Messaging
Supporters can download sample text messages to their cellphones and send them to their friends and contacts. A text-message campaign will be used to promote CIW Web 2.0.

• RSS Newswire
Due to the limitations of HTML, we cannot currently syndicate news of farmworker organizing and late-breaking developments in the campaign. A content-management based website will allow us to feed our news to allies and news sources across the world.

• Street-Level Propaganda
Harnessing the creative minds of the CIW ally network, artwork, posters, and flyers would be available for download.

1http://www.sfalliance.org/media/nrn.html
2http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/mcdonald%27s/exclusive-mcdonalds-promotes-monopoly-game-with-flogs-211065.php

In our pursuit of systematic change across the agricultural industry, the Campaign for Fair Food is working to bring McDonald's on board with the historic principles established in the Taco Bell Boycott victory. These precedents, including a penny more per pound of tomatoes picked (passed directly to the workers), real rights in the fields, and meaningful participation of farmworkers in decisions about their lives, would be in a precarious position if industry-leading McDonald's were not brought to the table. Indeed, the agreement of this fast-food goliath to these principles would help to build industry-wide consensus around the feasibility and necessity of these changes. CIW Web 2.0 will be a critical tool among others toward achieving that goal.

As in the Taco Bell Boycott, the broad participation of the fast-food industry's target market—18-to 24-year-olds—will greatly influence McDonald's willingness to come to the table and make an agreement with the CIW. But we are already behind in this endeavor. Unlike McDonald's, farmworkers do not possess slick, billion-dollar marketing campaigns to spread the truth of their back-breaking labor that forms the base of the fast-food industry. The CIW has strategically and frugally made inroads thus far with its self-produced media,1 but the current climate of viral, saturating marketing demands a response on a new level. McDonald's and others in the fast food industry are already using these technologies to reach their “sweet spot.” For our campaign to be successful, we, too, must effectively wield these tools.

Educating and Animating toward Action
In a new and compelling format, the flash short and Website 2.0 will educate our allies about the Taco Bell Boycott victory, the reality of farm work, and the Campaign for Fair Food currently targeting McDonald's. This education and conciousness-raising around sweatshops in the fields and their connection to manipulative corporate branding lays the groundwork for committed social action.

CIW Web 2.0 will also complement our organizing by bringing these tactics in-house and harnessing already created content. For example, a major component of the Campaign for Fair Food is the simple act of mailing a postcard to McDonald's global headquarters outside Chicago. Each postcard represents to McDonald's a sampling of the support that the CIW's demands enjoy in the general (consuming) public. Six months ago, through the Sojouner's website we sent an email action alert which cluttered McDonald's CEO Jim Skinner's inbox with thousands of statements of support for the CIW. The new technology we would integrate into CIW Web 2.0 would allow us to bring this tactic in-house, combining these two simple, yet powerful tools into an e-postcard. The e-postcard would be not only easy to send, but also to forward, creating a ripple effect.

The CIW's low-power FM station has been on air for three years, but has yet to be streamed. We have produced feature-length documentaries and numerous shorts, but have not yet offered them in one centralized location that facilitates access and sharing. We have begun to experiment with YouTube and other social networking sites to share our independently-produced audio and video. While we will continue to use such sites for distribution, this technology request would allow us to do so through our own means and reach a broader audience.

The CIW and SFA websites are widely recognized for their superb writing, exciting Truth Tour photo-narratives, and influence over our campaign targets. RSS audio and video and text feeds, however, would integrate up-to-the-minute information from the Campaign for Fair Food into blogs, vlogs, ally websites, and newsfeeds across the world, multiplying many times the effectiveness of our current online presence.

Almost daily, we receive requests for organizing materials. Periodically, we collect thousands of email addresses at tour stops and other large events. A content-management-based website will streamline our contact database management and material requests by automating contact collection and organization.

3 http://www.ciw-online.org/media.html

Promotion
We will support the technology through a coordinated plan of promotion. A large component of the promotion will be the viral distribution of the flash animation. The interest generated by the flash short will drive traffic to the site. The very nature of the structure of CIW Website 2.0—linking feeds, share options, viral distribution—will diffuse throughout our existing ally networks and spiral towards new audiences.

• Flash Animation
We have approached Ruckus Productions about developing a flash animation for the CIW. The flash animation—reflecting the reality of farm work—will be individually promoted, which will in turn drive traffic to the website.

• Blogs and Vlogs
Once CIW Web 2.0 is online, we will approach friendly bloggers, vloggers, listservs, and online communities to announce its release.

• Networking
We will continue to use social networking sites such as YouTube, Myspace, and Facebook to promote the new flash and site. The ability to easily share a recently-viewed CIW short or email action alert will virally promote CIW Web 2.0. Hooking our RSS feeds into other ally sites will make CIW news more available and more visible. Viral banners and buttons will be designed for ally organizations and individuals to place on their websites. We will continue to distribute our PSA with the new one-stop download page.

• Incorporation into the Campaign
The release of the site will be timed with a strategic escalation in the Campaign for Fair Food. The closely-timed escalation and our step into new e-terrain will complement and play off each other, building excitement within our ally networks while putting fast-food executives on notice.


Self-Administration and Skill-Sharing
The CIW has approached Ruckus Productions and Radical Design for flash animation design and web support, but the design of the technology will be done in close coordination with the CIW. In addition, knowledge about upkeep and administration of the technology will be passed on to the CIW during the design process.

Self-administration of the website serves a practical purpose—it allows changes in text and other content to be made quickly according to developments in the campaign. Thus, the technology becomes closely incorporated into our campaigning. Unless absolutely necessary, we will strive to be self-reliant and not dependent on external technical support. By administrating our own technology, we can also effectively transfer the knowledge-sets and skill-sets to the members of our staff. When we learn and use new technologies it builds our capacity as individuals and as an organization.

The evaluation of this project is tied to the success of the Campaign for Fair Food, currently focused on McDonald's, and how much it aids us in achieving the goals we have laid out in this campaign.

We will evaluate the project by quantitatively analyzing user hits, email action alerts sent, database content generated, and number of downloads. Less quantifiable but equally important, we will also evaluate the ever-elusive buzz created around the flash and the website. The viral and shareable nature of the web content will be shared throughout numerous networks to the point where we will not be able to judge its impact. Currently, when a PSA is downloaded it is difficult to track how many times it will be played on-air at a community radio station. During our 2006 McDonald's Mini-Tour, members of Radio Conciencia produced a five-minute audio piece with reports from the field and updates on the Campaign for Fair Food. We uploaded the segment to radio.indymedia.org, with the help of our student allies. Tto our surprise, the piece was rebroadcast across Spain through a network of community radio stations. This is just one small example of how this type of project can complement and amplify our message and our movement. It is also a small example of how relationships can be built between students, or other allies, and farmworkers through technological skill exchanges. CIW Web 2.0 will consolidate such content in an easily shareable format to maximize diffusion.

Online action and technology can never replace face-to-face, one-on-one consciousness-raising and real-world mobilization. Yet, the nature of our campaign and the institutions we confront necessitate this new focus. We will evaluate the project by its incorporation into our existing organizing. While CIW Web 2.0 is not intended to replace this organizing, it is intended to amplify and complement our Campaign for Fair Food.