Prometheus and CIW Partner on Radio Barnraising

November 25, 2003

Contact: Damara Luce, 239.822.2979, Pete Tridish 215.605.9297

Coalition of Immokalee Workers Launches Multi-Lingual Community Radio Station
Nationally Recognized Farmworker Organization to Have a Voice of Its Own

IMMOKALEE, FLORIDA --The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), in partnership with the Prometheus Radio Project, will launch its new worker-run radio station (WCTI-FM) on Sunday evening, December 7th, following a 3-day media conference. In the spirit of neighbors pulling together to put up a new building, CIW and Prometheus organizers will gather hundreds of Low Power FM Radio applicants, journalists, radio engineers, students, lawyers, musicians, and activists from across the U.S. to raise the antenna mast, finish the studio, and flip on the station switch!

The initial broadcast will come after two long years of waiting for the CIW, during which time their Low Power FM (LPFM) application was processed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and they navigated through local zoning regulations.

WCTI-FM will produce multi-lingual programming for Southwest Florida farmworkers, and will serve as a primary organizing tool for the community as it fights for workers' rights. Lucas Benitez, an organizer with the CIW and a recipient of the 2003 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights award, stated, "Our radio station will serve as a key source of information for immigrant workers in Immokalee. We will broadcast news, educational programs, and music in Spanish, Haitian Creole and indigenous languages of Mexico and Guatemala. Finally, we will have a station that reflects the values of poor and marginalized workers!"

"While the media corporations build their empires of FCC-sanctioned mega-mergers, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers is creating local, diverse radio that speaks much more clearly to what the American people are thinking about today," said Prometheus Technical Director Pete Tridish. "This is what our media were supposed to be for: news about the struggles of people to be paid fairly for their work, about where their food comes from, and about the rights of their neighbors. This won't be just another station with a robot somewhere in San Antonio coughing up a string of soundbites, sandwiched by focus-group-chosen Top-40 bubblegum! This station will bring radio back to its roots in public service."

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, founded in 1994, is a community-based worker organization whose members are largely Latino, Haitian, and Mayan Indian immigrant farmworkers. Together, they are fighting for fair wages, improved working conditions, the right to organize without fear of retaliation, and an end to indentured servitude in the fields. The CIW is spearheading the national Taco Bell boycott, calling on the fast-food giant to take responsibility for the sweatshop conditions in the fields where it buys its tomatoes. The CIW is also a nationally recognized leader in the fight against modern-day slavery, helping bring five major peonage operations to justice in Florida since 1997. To learn more, visit http://www.ciw-online.org.

The Prometheus Radio Project has played a key role in the struggle to get licenses for community radio stations. Prometheus practices a mixture of research, advocacy, activism and direct services to organizations that want to start radio stations on the newly won rules for neighborhood radio. To learn more, visit http://www.prometheusradio.org.