[Peace-discuss] Florida tomato pickers kick double butt

[Jenifer Cartwright]

How many tomatoes does BK actually use? It's not like they're making pizza sauce or chili, right? Does CU even have any BKs these days, even one?? So fewer places overall. Yeah, 35 workers could do it. (It was probably the, uh, principle of the thing.)
   --Jenifer

"John W." <jbw292002 at gmail.com> wrote:
  On Sat, May 24, 2008 at 12:43 PM, Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at yahoo.com> wrote:

    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)  
Can that be right?  That's not a misprint??  This wage increase will cost Burger King only $300,000 a year, and they've been fighting it tooth and toenail all these years?????  Shit, that's probably like a month's salary for the CEO of Burger King.

Nah, that can't be right.  At the figures quoted, $300,000 would cover the wage increase for only about 35 tomato pickers.  You reckon 35 workers can pick an entire year's worth of Burger King tomatoes?

John Wason

 
  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.

*snip*
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