Taco Bell boycott marches on Walnut St.

At 1 p.m. Thursday, a bus of 25 immigrant farm workers pulled up to the corner of Walnut and Seventh Streets across from Taco Bell. The farm workers, wearing blue "Boycott Taco Bell" shirts, joined a group of 30 IU students and Bloomington residents protesting on the sidewalk outside the fast-food restaurant.\nThe protesters held up signs reading "No Quiero Taco Bell," "Boycott the Bell" and "32 Cents for Tomato Pickers."\nThey marched up and down Walnut Street in front of Taco Bell chanting and holding up signs to passers-by. Police officers arrived to monitor the non-violent protest as Taco Bell employees stood at the restaurant's windows and doors to watch the rally.\nAfterward, the group met with others interested in the issue in State Room East of the Indiana Memorial Union. A farm-worker representative and a Spanish-English translator spoke to a group of students and citizens about the slave-like conditions among tomato farmers on the East Coast. They handed out bumper stickers and buttons and asked for support from various community activist groups.\nThe farm workers, known as the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, are on a tour across America to protest the low wages they receive and the sweatshop-like conditions in which they work. In Bloomington, sympathetic activist groups such as No Sweat! and the Bloomington Circus Collective have joined the workers to advertise their cause.\n"I hope to inform people of the practices of Taco Bell's company toward workers," said No Sweat! member sophomore Philip Shelton. "The workers have been treated very poorly."\nThe farm workers pick tomatoes for Yum! Brands, which supplies tomatoes to Taco Bell. The farm workers will end their tour in Louisville, Ky., at the Yum! Brands headquarters.\n"The goal is to get Taco Bell to respond," said No Sweat! member doctoral student Ursula McTaggart. "We want Taco Bell to know that people across the country want farm workers to earn higher wages."\nImmigrant workers must pick two tons of tomatoes to make $50 in one day. They make less than $7,500 a year, which puts them under the poverty level, according to a pamphlet handed out at the protest.\nAt the meeting, the CIW representative told of the five modern-day slavery cases that have been brought to justice since the protests began. After the CIW was refused FBI intervention, members volunteered to re-enter the fields undercover to investigate and expose human rights violations.\nTaco Bell did not return calls by press time.\nFor more information on the CIW cause, visit the group's Web site, www.ciw-online.org.\n-- Contact Staff Writer Christie Burke at chlburke@indiana.edu.