[Peace-discuss] Florida tomato pickers kick double butt

[Ricky Baldwin]

The message here, folks, is keep slogging on!  Just when it looked like
jackbooted capitalism was going to undo all the gains the farmworkers
had won, capital caves!  No more spying, no more threats, and Burger
King is paying extra!  (You can bet big money hasn't given up, by a
long shot - they'll lick their wounds awhile and come back, maybe with
the hotshot corporate lawyers like Hillary Clinton et al, but that's
another day.  For now, the farmworkers and the peopl have won a round -
on to the next! - RB)

May 24, 2008
Burger King Grants Raise to Pickers 
By ANDREW MARTIN, New York Times

After a contentious battle that included allegations of spying, Burger
King announced on Friday that it had reached an agreement to improve
the wages and working conditions of tomato pickers in Florida.

At a news conference on Capitol Hill, the hamburger chain, based in
Miami, said it would pay tomato prices adequate to give workers a wage
increase of 1.5 cents a pound. A penny a pound will go into the
workers’ pockets. The extra half-cent is intended to cover additional
payroll taxes and administrative costs for tomato growers.

The 1-cent increase means that for every 32-pound bucket of tomatoes
they pick, the workers will earn 77 cents, instead of 45 cents. That is
a 71 percent increase, the first substantial one in decades for the
workers. At the old wage, a farm workers’ group said, the pickers
typically earned $10,000 to $12,000 a year.

“If the Florida tomato industry is to be sustainable long term, it must
become more socially responsible,” said Amy Wagner, a senior vice
president at Burger King. She estimated that the wage boost would cost
Burger King about $300,000 a year.

In a statement, Burger King’s chief executive, John W. Chidsey, said he
was sorry for previous negative remarks directed toward an activist
group that has fought on behalf of the pickers, the Coalition for
Immokalee Workers. Immokalee is a town in southwest Florida where many
of the farm workers live in decrepit shacks and trailers.

Mr. Chidsey praised the workers’ organization as “being on the
forefront of efforts to improve farm labor conditions, exposing abuses
and driving socially responsible purchasing and work practices in the
Florida tomato fields.”

McDonalds and Yum Brands, the parent of Taco Bell, had already agreed
to similar deals. But it remained unclear on Friday if workers would
receive the pay increase, because Florida tomato growers had resisted
it.

The Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, which represents 90 percent of the
state’s tomato growers, told The News-Press in Fort Myers, Fla., on
Thursday that it was withdrawing its threat of imposing $100,000 fines
on members who provided a penny-a-pound pay raise.

Reggie Brown, the exchange’s executive vice president, told the Florida
newspaper that he remained troubled by legal questions prompted by the
raise and was advising members not to participate.

Mr. Brown could not be located for comment on Friday.

The announcement was hailed by some members of Congress and by farm
workers’ organizations, who had waged a vigorous campaign that included
petition drives and Congressional hearings.

Senator Bernard Sanders, an Independent of Vermont, said the working
conditions of the tomato pickers were a “national and international
embarrassment,” and he praised Burger King for agreeing to raise wages.
“We all know that this has been a long and hard road for Burger King,”
he said.

Lucas Benitez, of the Coalition for Immokalee Workers, said he was
thankful that Burger King agreed to the wage increase, and he said his
group would now set its sights on other restaurant chains and grocery
retailers who continue to pay wages his group regards as substandard.

Noting that some of those companies market themselves as being socially
responsible, Mr. Benitez, co-founder of the farm workers’ group, said,
“It is time for those companies to live out the true meaning of their
marketers’ words.

Friday’s announcement was a sharp departure for Burger King, which had
vigorously fought increasing its tomato costs. Burger King
acknowledged, for instance, that it had hired a private security firm
to obtain information about student and farm worker organizations that
were demanding price increases. The company has since severed its ties
to the security firm.