Coalition of Immokalee Workers

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers ( Coalition of Immokalee workers, CIW) is a grassroots organization that fights for the rights of farm workers working in Southwest Florida. Its membership includes some 4,000 farm workers mainly Mexican, Guatemalan and Haitian descent who work on tomato and other plantations in Florida. The CIW has in the past caused increases in mostly low wages and received for their use against cases of slavery in the agriculture of the Anti-Slavery Award 2007 region.

History

Started in 1993, with regular meetings, the self-organization of an initially small group of farm workers. With strikes and public campaigns, the CIW continued in the following years to improve the situation of workers a; by 1998 it had reached self-reported wage increases of 13-25 %.

As of 1997, the CIW fought increasingly also cases of slavery in Florida agriculture. By 2001, she brought three such cases in court and thus excluding them hundreds in debt bondage held migrant workers. At the same time she turned directly to companies like Taco Bell and McDonald's as the largest consumer of fruits and vegetables from Florida and brought them to lobby for better working conditions in agriculture.

The campaign against slavery made ​​the CIW nationally and internationally known and brought her 2007 award of the Anti-Slavery Award.