No Taco Bell

To the Editor:

We are writing to voice our objections to the proposed Taco Bell on campus. We represent a student group called Empty the Shelters, Fill the Homes, an anti-poverty group that works in solidarity with low-income families and individuals, not unlike those who pick tomatoes for the Taco Bell Corporation.

In fact, the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, our umbrella organization composed primarily of said constituency, is a partner of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in the national Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign and remains in regular communication with this group.

In October of 2002, representatives from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers visited Penn ("Panelists Debate Conditions in Fast Food," The Daily Pennsylvanian, 10/9/02), stopping here during a nationwide tour to publicize the absolute injustice and violation of their economic human right to "just and favorable remuneration [for work] ensuring for [the worker] and his family an existence worthy of human dignity" (see Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ratified by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948).

As the conditions under which these tomato pickers labor have not been improved, we remain in solidarity with the CIW by boycotting Taco Bell (in effect since the beginning of the national tour in 2001) and protesting against the proposed installation of a Taco Bell on our campus.

Penn should not condone the actions and excuses of the Taco Bell Corporation in resisting improved labor practices by contracting with this business. Students and administrators at other schools have led the way by terminating contracts with Taco Bell; we urge Facilities and Real Estate Services to quickly reconsider the pending agreement.

Until the tomato pickers are fairly compensated for their work, Taco Bell will not be welcome on Penn's campus.

Shelby Ahern

College '05

Lizzy Rossin

College '08

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