Your Fight the Right Activist links for May 19, 2008

** United Farm Workers **
On April 14, a delegation of workers from Beef Northwest met with Whole Foods' Vice-President Edmund La Maccia and presented a copy of the online petition that you and more than 13,000 people signed. During the meeting, the Whole Foods representative said he was moved by the workers' stories. He said he would contact Beef Northwest and urge that they sit down with the UFW to resolve this issue. He told the workers he'd let us know how Beef Northwest responded.

His promises excited the workers. However, it appears they were only words. To date, Whole Foods is back to ignoring the UFW’s e-mails and phone calls.

Send Whole Foods an e-mail today. It's time for Whole Foods to do the right thing and not just talk.
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** Center for Biological Diversity **
The federal government is once again proposing to allow longline fishing for swordfish in the waters off California and Oregon. Longlining, in which a single vessel can lay out over 60 miles of line and 1,000 hooks at a time, is one of the most destructive fishing practices ever invented. In addition to depleting the oceans of the targeted swordfish and tuna, longlines hook, entangle, and kill tens of thousands of seabirds, sea turtles, marine mammals and sharks. The critically endangered Pacific leatherback sea turtle has been reduced from over 100,000 nesting females to fewer than 3,000 over the past 25 years, primarily due to the impacts of longline fishing.

Swordfish longlining has been banned in waters off the West Coast since 2004, following a successful lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity. Just last summer, the Center led opposition to a proposal to allow an experimental longline fishery in these waters, which are crucial to the Pacific leatherback. Even though the California Coastal Commission has already denied that proposal before, the National Marine Fisheries Service and the permit applicant are once again pushing to allow longline fishing in these waters.

Please let the agency know that you oppose the introduction of this deadly fishing gear to the West Coast by submitting comments on the proposed fishing permit.
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** Food and Water Watch **
Rather than admit to chronic staffing and funding shortfalls, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently proposed outsourcing some of its inspection duties to "third parties." The enforcement of federal food safety standards is too important a job to hand off to the private sector.

Tell the FDA not to shirk its responsibility to protect the U.S. food supply.
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