Tell Kangaroo Express: Support Tobacco Farm Workers
For months, consumers and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee ( FLOC ) have been urging Kangaroo Express, the largest convenience store chain in the Southeast that sells tobacco products, to encourage Reynolds American to develop with FLOC a written agreement guaranteeing freedom of association and collective bargaining for thousands of tobacco farm workers in North Carolina.
Reynolds finally agreed to meet with FLOC and initial discussions are in the works. But this fight isn't over.
FLOC is asking Kangaroo's Chairman of the Board Edwin Holman to visit the tobacco fields in North Carolina and see conditions first-hand. Today is the last day you can help by sending an e-mail to Holman .
FLOC will deliver these petitions on Labor Day in Charlotte.
Below is an excerpt of the petition from FLOC President Baldemar Velasquez:
The situation for tobacco farm workers in North Carolina is dire. A report from Oxfam released last year showed that many farm workers often live in labor camps with inadequate or non-functioning toilets and showers and other substandard conditions, suffer from illnesses resulting from nicotine poisoning and exposure to dangerous pesticides and work long hours for below poverty wages.
This Labor Day, as part of the Southern Workers Assembly taking place in Charlotte, we will deliver a message to Kangaroo Express —the largest convenience store chain in the Southeast that sells tobacco products, including Reynolds American—representatives that we want Kangaroo Express COB (Chairman of the Board) Edwin Holman to visit the fields and talk to farm workers to see how urgent the situation really is.
Sign our petition to Holman here and we will deliver it in Charlotte on Labor Day .
