#WendysIsOverParty

Every day, millions of migrant farmworkers do the back-breaking work of harvesting the fruits and vegetables that feed the entire country and, in turn, generate billions in profits for the trillion-dollar retail food industry. Yet despite the essential nature of their labor, for generations farmworkers have endured extreme poverty, sexual assault and modern-day slavery.

For over seven years, hundreds of thousands of farmworkers with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) and their consumer allies have demanded verifiable protections against sexual violence, forced labor and other human rights abuses in Wendy’s supply chain by joining the Presidential Medal-winning Fair Food Program. All of the largest fast-food companies — McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, Taco Bell and Chipotle — along with nine other major food retailers, from Whole Foods to Walmart, have joined. All except Wendy’s.

Bowing to massive consumer pressure in the national Wendy’s Boycott, the fast-food giant announced its tomato purchasing shift away from Mexico’s abusive tomato industry to greenhouse operations in the U.S. and Canada. Wendy's has released misleading statements, including the claim that greenhouses have "inherent benefits of safe, indoor working conditions,” known to be false by farmworkers. Wendy’s assurances that working conditions are fine in their greenhouse suppliers’ operations ring hollow when compared to the hard evidence of harsh conditions faced by workers in greenhouses, not to mention the well-documented failure of the auditing companies tasked with protecting workers from widespread labor and safety violations.

The very workers that Wendy’s decision-makers have turned their backs on for years are the same workers responsible for the company’s financial health, when all is said and done. Instead of finding excuse after excuse not to join the most widely respected human rights program in agriculture today, it’s time for Wendy’s to partner with the CIW and invest in real, enforceable health, safety, and human rights standards in its supply chain. Wendy’s: join the Fair Food Program now!