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Following years of student protests, Wendy’s departs FAU campus

Lupe Gonzalo, a former farmer and one of the leaders of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, protesting alongside farmworkers through the Town of Palm Beach on Saturday afternoon to urge Nelson Peltz, board chairman of Wendy's, to join the Fair Food Program. 4/2/2022
Wilkine Brutus
Lupe Gonzalo, a former farmer and one of the leaders of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, protesting alongside farmworkers through the Town of Palm Beach on Saturday afternoon to urge Nelson Peltz, board chairman of Wendy's, to join the Fair Food Program. 4/2/2022

After 15 years, a Wendy’s at Florida Atlantic University will remain closed for good following student protests over the chain’s tomatoes. Pressure ramped up last month after farmworkers and supporters marched through the Town of Palm Beach, urging Wendy's to join a program that prevents labor abuse.

In April, farmworkers came from across the state to march with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers through the wealthy Town of Palm Beach, near the home of Wendy’s board chairman Nelson Peltz.

Around 400 people joined CIW, chanting, “Wendy's escucha! Estamos en la lucha!" (“Wendy’s — listen! We are in the fight!”).

Artists, faith communities, and college students all urged the chain to join the Fair Food Program. It’s an initiative in the tomato industry that improves labor standards and protects workers from farm labor abuses, such as wage theft and sexual abuse from supervisors.

CIW organizer Lupe Gonzalo worked in the tomato fields of Immokalee for years. Melody Gonzalez, who helped organize the protest for CIW, interpreted what Gonzalo had to say.

“Some of the supervisors, for example, would tell the women like, oh, you can clean the bus instead, or you can come in my car. I’ll give you this easier job, or if you go out with me, you’ll get a better wage,” Gonzalo said. “In more extreme cases, women that face rape in the fields. So much that women have held in and don’t bring out into the light due to fear. It’s fear of losing their jobs.”

Over the years, CIW has had success enlisting college students to persuade corporate buyers like Taco Bell and Walmart to pay an extra “penny per pound” of tomatoes. Growers use that premium to increase pay, provide extra water and shade and a 24-hour hotline for reports of abuse. The Fair Food Program also includes mandatory farm audits.

“Just sign on to the Fair Food Program and treat these workers with human decency,” said Charles Burggraff, who recently graduated from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton with his Master’s degree in Sociology.

Burggraff, who also attended the march, is one of the organizers for the Student Farmworker Alliance, a national coalition of student advocates with a group at FAU.

Pressure against Wendy’s at FAU started before Burggraff joined the effort. In 2019, the university’s student government passed a resolution that recommended the removal of the Wendy’s on campus.

But there was no further action. Burggraff and other leaders in the SFA spoke to WLRN after the university announced Wendy’s departure from campus.

“These campuses rely on student turnover,” Burggraff said. “So when one graduating class has a movement like it did in 2019 to make that resolution, it could have just easily been swept under the rug and wait until the next generation of kids come in and have forgetten about it.”

Annabelle Chambelle is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at FAU and one of the leaders of the Student Farmworker Alliance or SFA. She said the Wendy’s in FAU’s Breezeway food court has been empty since the start of the pandemic.

“Totally shut down. Empty. Lights off. Nobody's working,” Chambelle said. “They're still like in the food court with the signage and everything. You very much know it's a Wendy's, but there's nobody there.”

A Wendy’s spokesperson told WLRN that the decision to close was made by a franchise operator for “a variety of business reasons.” And an FAU spokesperson said a Steak ‘n Shake will replace Wendy’s.

Chartwells, the school's food provider, did not respond to WLRN’s request for comment. On their main website, Chartwells expressed their approval of the Fair Food Program. The mission statement said they are “proud supporters of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) and the Fair Food initiative.”

Students say any new restaurant on campus should join the Fair Food Program: Steak 'n Shake has not, and students aren’t limiting their activism to FAU, which is why they marched on Palm Beach island.

“We can change the way our supply chains work,” Chambelle said. “And we can ensure workers' rights. We can ensure living wages, and it's really not that hard. We just need cooperation.”

In a statement to WLRN, Wendy's said it relies on third-party reviews of suppliers’ farm labor practices. The company said it does not participate in the Fair Food Program because Wendy’s North American tomatoes come from indoor greenhouses, not fields.

But CIW said Wendy’s audits are voluntary and lack worker input and that greenhouse workers deserve the same protections as other farmworkers.

Sunveer Virk, an undergrad student majoring in political science, is also an outspoken leader within the SFA. He helped pass out flyers the week of the protest and said the march made a significant impact on campus and the labor movement.

“Showing people in the labor struggle, in the social justice struggle, that there is a way out, that there is success in the end, it gives people hope,” Virk said. “That’s one of the most important impacts of this march.”

Trey Donnelly, a grad student in the sociology department, calls the results of their protest a potential “domino effect.”

And Burggraff believes a new generation of students may keep up the pressure.

“Hopefully, even after I graduate, there will be another generation of students continuing to fight this fight until Wendy’s signs on,” Burggraff said.

CLARIFICATION: An earlier version of this story included the headline, “Student protest led to Wendy’s removal from Florida Atlantic University.” A spokesperson for Wendy’s argued the chain’s departure from FAU was not related to student protests. FAU did not respond to questions about why Wendy’s left and whether student activism played a role. The headline has been updated for clarity.

Wilkine Brutus is the Palm Beach County Reporter for WLRN. The award-winning journalist produces stories on topics surrounding local news, culture, art, politics and current affairs. Contact Wilkine at wbrutus@wlrnnews.org
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