Dear Emil Brolick, Nelson Peltz, and the Board of Directors of The Wendy’s Company,

As leaders of diverse national faith bodies and social justice advocates who care deeply about human rights, we are writing to call on Wendy’s to join the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ (CIW) Fair Food Program. CIW launched a national boycott of Wendy’s in response to the fast-food company’s decision to reject a proven human rights program that is preventing violence, wage theft, sexual assault, and slavery in the Florida tomato industry and beyond. We as people of faith and social justice values endorse the CIW’s boycott of Wendy’s.

As you know, the CIW has worked with growers and corporations to build the Fair Food Program, an innovative collaboration that today is transforming the agricultural industry. This Program ensures farmworkers will labor in safety and with respect, enables growers to be as proud of their working conditions as their products, and allows buyers to assure their customers that the produce they purchase has been fairly brought to their shelves.

The faith bodies and social justice advocates we represent have been supporting this effort for many years through endorsements, resolutions and letters to corporations, 14 of which have now joined the Program. We have been calling on Wendy’s to join the FFP since 2013. We have joined farmworkers in countless vigils, marches, protests, and phone calls to your headquarters asking Wendy’s to respect the dignity of farmworkers. We deplore the conditions under which farmworkers were forced to work and must still work in fields not participating in the Fair Food Program — conditions of abuse, sexual harassment, and in extreme cases, modern-day slavery.

We are distressed that Wendy’s has not only refused to join the FFP, but has stopped buying tomatoes from Florida altogether following the implementation of the Program there. Rather than join a program that ensures respect for workers' human rights, Wendy’s took its tomato purchases to Mexico, where workers continue to confront sexual harassment, child labor, and even slavery without access to remedy. Specifically, as revealed in an investigative piece from Harper’s Magazine last month, Wendy’s has sourced from a Mexican grower that was the subject of a massive slavery prosecution in 2013. What is more, your corporation promotes its own supplier code of conduct that contains no effective mechanisms for worker participation or enforcement. And of the five largest fast-food companies, Wendy’s is the only one not participating in the FFP. Wendy’s has opted to profit from farmworker poverty and abuse by deriving a cost advantage over its competitors and continuing to provide an alternative market outside the FFP for less reputable growers.

As people of faith and social justice values, we call upon you to join fourteen other buyers including McDonalds, Yum! Brands, Burger King, and Walmart and millions of consumers nationwide in protecting the human rights of farmworkers through the Fair Food Program – and we pledge to join the boycott of Wendy’s until Wendy’s commits to justice for the workers that make your profits possible.