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Students line up to order at Taco Bell. The ASUCLA Services Committee will meet today to decide i

The Associated Students of UCLA Services Committee will meet today to decide on a recommendation to its board of directors regarding Taco Bell’s presence on UCLA’s campus.

The committee’s resolution will then be passed on to the board of directors, who will have the final say on Taco Bell’s possible contract at the board’s meeting on Oct. 29.

Taco Bell came under fire several years ago for purchasing tomatoes used in their products from Florida companies allegedly violating human rights.

A campaign to boycott Taco Bell was initiated by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a community-based worker organization representing the interests of agricultural workers in Florida. The coalition called for living wages for their workers and corrections of the alleged human rights violations.

ASUCLA recently rekindled the issue at its board meeting in September when Taco Bell presented its correspondence with the coalition regarding the allegations, said Emmanuel Martinez, chairman of the Services Committee. Final questions were answered by Jonathan Blum, senior vice president of public affairs at YUM! Brands, Taco Bell’s parent company.

“The Services Committee wants to go back to these records and make their recommendation based on that,” said Bob Williams, interim director of ASUCLA, referring to the information received at the September meeting.

The workers’ coalition campaign first came to UCLA last year amid ongoing concerns about the food chain’s business practices.

In December 2003, ASUCLA passed a resolution requesting an investigation and a report from Taco Bell on the allegations made against it. Taco Bell failed to submit the report.

Then in May, the Services Committee made a recommendation to the ASUCLA board of directors to terminate the contract with the food chain at the end of the school year.

But an announcement made by YUM! Brands seemed to have influenced the final decision of the board. In response to the demands of the coalition, David Novak, CEO of YUM! Brands, pledged support for an industry-wide solution to the situation.

ASUCLA then passed a resolution which allowed Taco Bell to stay on campus, but prevented the university from entering into long-term contracts with the restaurant.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers has also been active at other college campuses around the country. The most recent success of the campaign was the decision made by University of Notre Dame not to renew a sponsorship agreement its athletic department had with Taco Bell.

But no one is quite sure what the Services Committee will decide.

“It is really up in the air,” Martinez said. “It is not an issue of who is right or wrong, it is an issue of who we believe.”

Student activists involved in the campaign also expressed concern.

“I certainly have hopes, but I do not know what to expect,” said Nathan Lam, a member of the Social Justice Alliance, a UCLA group which organized fasts and protests against Taco Bell. “At this point, it is in the hands of the Services Committee to decide.”