UNC Students Push to ‘Boot the Braids’

A group of around 50 students marched on Thursday to UNC – Chapel Hill’s on-campus Wendy’s to protest the chain’s alleged mistreatment of the farm workers in its supply chain.

UNC’s Student-Farmworkers Alliance organized the event as a part of the national “Boot the Braids” campaign. The goal is to pressure Wendy’s for its absence from the Fair Food Program, an agreement between food purchasers and farm workers mandating safer work conditions and better pay.

Event organizer Mia Shang, a linguistics and anthropology student, said part of the objective was to raise student awareness of the campaign.

“I think we were successful in really grabbing people’s attentions, especially as we marched through The Pit during the class change,” she said after the march. “We’re hoping to get that big audience. Even if they just ask, ‘Why are they boycotting Wendy’s? Why are they marching?’ That is the first step.”

Student activists take issue with Wendy’s absence from a list of major fast food companies to join the Fair Food Program, an agreement between major food purchasers like McDonald’s and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, who represent farm workers pushing for safer work conditions and better pay.

In an email, Scott Myers, director of Auxiliary Services at UNC, said the on-campus Wendy’s is a franchise operated by Aramark, which signed onto the Fair Food Program in 2011. Therefore, produce used in the on-campus Wendy’s campus is already subject to the provisions of that agreement.

But student activists say that isn’t enough. Organizers still have questions about the agreement reached between Aramark and Wendy’s to ensure ethical sourcing of its food.

Marco L. Chumbimuni said the values of Wendy’s will continue to clash with the founding principles of UNC.

“Even though the food is sourced through Aramark, why is it that Wendy’s is still here? Wendy’s is a corporation on it own that refuses to do the right thing.”