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Florida News
- 05/08/08 - Controversy Growing Over Supermarkets Importing Organic Food from China
- 05/08/08 - Burger King Caught Spying on Student Farmworker Activists in Florida
- 05/06/08 - Ouster of Sierra Club's Florida Leaders Stirs up a Storm of Controversy
- 05/05/08 - Lowe's Eye the Everglades
- 05/05/08 - Toll of Toxins Won't Be Known Until Full Study
- 05/05/08 - Small-Town Residents Living on Deadly Ground
- 04/29/08 - Massive Plow May Bring Lake Apopka Back to Life
- 04/29/08 - Burger King Exec Uses Daughter's Online ID To Chide Immokalee Coalition
- 04/25/08 - Florida Moves To Curb Ocean Sewage Dumping
- 04/23/08 - Forecast of Rising Waters Paints Bleak Future for S. Fla. Coasts
- 04/23/08 - Is Raytheon Site Poisoning St. Petersburg Neighborhood?
- 04/23/08 - Reuters Florida Moves to Curb Ocean Sewage Dumping
- 04/22/08 - Florida Asks Citizens to Report Environmental Crime
- 04/21/08 - NOAA Offers $200,00 to Help Clean Biscayne Bay
- 04/21/08 - Caught Red-Handed!
- 04/20/08 - How Green Are Green Businesses?
- 04/17/08 - Farmworker Family's Ag-Mart Settlement Amount 'Significant'
- 04/17/08 - Florida Farmworkers: Ending Slavery for Pennies
- 04/16/08 - Grow Your Own Vegetables
- 04/16/08 - Opportunities to Celebrate Earth Day Abound in SW Fla.
- 04/15/08 - Did Burger King Target and Spy on Tomato Pickers Rights Groups?
- 04/10/08 - Commentary: Standing up to Wal-Mart in Florida
- 04/04/08 - Wal-Mart Cries Foul Despite Moneyed Clout
- 04/04/08 - Florida Schools Put Veggie Burgers on the Menu
- 04/03/08 - Florida Urged Not to Cut Funding for Everglades
- 04/03/08 - Everglades Restoration Could be Hurt by State's Money Woes
- 04/03/08 - Plan Would End Sewage-to-Ocean Pumping
Submit News Stories
End Exploitation and Modern-Day Slavery in the Florida Fields 
Coalition of Immokalee Workers
Burger King and other food industry leaders are supplied by workers who are are paid poverty wages that have barely changed in 30 years, forced to work long hours without overtime, subjected to physical abuse by supervisors, denied benefits such as sick days, paid leave, and health insurance, and punished for organizing. Some of these workers are forced to endure modern-day slavery. There have been six successful federal prosecutions of farm labor operations for servitude in Florida over the past decade, and a seventh was just initiated.
Burger King and other food industry leaders have a lot of power to affect change through their purchasing power. So far, they have failed to use this power to benefit the workers and have refused to join Yum! Brands and McDonald's in working with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to improve farm labor conditions.
Let Burger King and other food providers know that this is unacceptable and that you are prepared to participate in a boycott, if one is called, unless they agree to:
1. Pay a penny more per pound for tomatoes and ensure that the increase is passed on to tomato pickers in the form of increased wages, and
2. Work with the CIW to establish and enforce a human rights-based code of conduct, including zero tolerance for forced labor, to ensure fair and safe working conditions.
More information:
Coalition of Immokalee Workers
Alliance for Fair Food
Student/Farmerworker Alliance
Florida Legislative Roundup
From Progressive States Network)
A new governor, Republican Charlie Crist, gave a far more moderate and "muted" cast to this year's legislative session. Instead of "tort reform" benefits to big business and a right-wing social agenda, the results were mostly moderate reforms, some of them a real benefit to the state's consumers.
Florida homeowners have seen crushing increases in homeowners insurance, so the legislature froze rates for customers of the Citizens Property Insurance system until 2009, eased elibigibility for Floridians to gain coverage under Citizens, and generally, in the words of Gov. Crist, put a "nail in the coffin of an industry that is hurting people."
On clean energy and transportation, the legislature:
- Passed new incentives for solar, wind and energy from agricultural waste, including a property tax break for homes installing alternative energy additions, such as solar panels.
- Created a new Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority to develop express buses and a rail system.
- Allowed tolls to increase in line with the consumer price index.
- Blocked a bill that would have made it easier to develop in wetlands.
The state also joined the privatization hype by allowing private companies to build and operate toll roads in the state.
Other positive advances included:
- Getting rid of touch-screen voting machines-- with hopes that Florida won't continue to be the site of disputed elections due to faulty voting equipment.
- Mandating that gift cards not expire, a significant consumer protection since the state found that there were $430 million worth of unredeemed gift cards in the state.
- In education, the state approved rules requiring all elementary students take physical education, while refusing to revive a public school voucher system struck down by the state Supreme Court.
On the down side, tuition hikes were approved for university and community college students, though Gov. Crist may veto those hikes.
And in a gift to the telecom industry, the state approved a "video franchising" law stripping local governments of regulation over local cable rules without requiring new statewide franchises to build out to all communities. The bill did, however, make it easier to enroll low-income and senior customers in lifeline phone services and repealed a scheduled $157 million phone rate hike.
The legislature also had a long list of key initiatives that were not enacted -- some good, some bad. On the postive side, the state refused to hand out millions in taxpayer subsidies to sports teams, didn't enact new "tort reform" bills, and rejected anti-immigrant bills.
On the negative side, however, the state failed to enact reforms to the state's KidCare children's health insurance plan, a plan that has been tossing as many as 15,000 children a month out of the program due to badly-designed rules instituted two years ago. Florida will be meeting in special session in coming months to discuss some form of property tax relief, so hopefully KidCare reforms will be considered then as well.
Take Action. Support Green Jobs!
The Green Jobs Act of 2007 authorized $125 million per year to create an Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Worker Training Program as an amendment to the Workforce Investment Act (WIA). The Green Jobs Act (GJA) is an initial pilot program to identify needed skills, develop training programs, and train workers for jobs in a range of industries - including energy efficient building, construction and retrofits, renewable electric power, energy efficient vehicles, biofuels, and manufacturing that produces sustainable products and uses sustainable processes and materials. It targets a broad range of populations for eligibility, but has a special focus on creating "green pathways out of poverty."
Congress has not yet appropriated money for the Green Jobs Act. Please contact your Senator today and urge them to fund the Green Jobs Act of 2007!
Read more at Green for All's web site.
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