ASUCLA shouldn’t let Taco Bell call the shots
By Daily Bruin Staff
Oct. 11, 2004 9:00 p.m.
The Associated Students of UCLA’s board of directors
should stop letting Taco Bell push it around.
The board’s services committee made the same
recommendation Friday that it made twice last year; ASUCLA needs to
send Taco Bell a message by removing the chain from campus.
Activist and human rights groups have long berated Taco Bell for
buying tomatoes from a company that allegedly abuses workers’
rights.
Despite the restaurant’s failure to meet a May 2004
deadline to produce a report on tomato pickers’ working
conditions, the board has allowed Taco Bell to stay.
A statement made in May by executives of Taco Bell’s
parent company saying they would pursue an
“industry-wide” solution to labor abuses was enough to
convince ASUCLA to keep the restaurant on board.
It’s bizarre that ASUCLA would let a restaurant to which
it gives a contract dictate the rules. ASUCLA has stomached enough
disrespect from the taco chain.
It’s time for the association to take action after a year
of extended deadlines. Taco Bell didn’t pull through on its
end of the deal and complete the report, so ASUCLA shouldn’t
renew its contract.
