Rotten Tomatoes at Fast Food Joints

[Double A]

December 24, 2007
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

IMMOKALEE, Fla. — In a colorful, often clamorous pressure campaign that has relied on support from college campuses and church groups, a group of farmworkers has persuaded McDonald's and Taco Bell to have their tomato suppliers pay their pickers more.

But the workers' efforts have recently collided with two big obstacles. Burger King has rejected the demands to have its tomato suppliers pay higher wages, and the main group of Florida tomato growers — calling the farmworkers' tactics "un-American" — has threatened a $100,000 fine against growers that cooperate with McDonald's or Yum Brands, the parent of Taco Bell, to pay their pickers more.

"The only way you can describe this industry is the way it was described 40 years ago: It's a harvest of shame," said Lucas Benitez, a co-founder of the farmworkers' group, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. "The wages are so low that a lot of workers are just surviving."

Steve Grover, vice president for food safety and regulatory compliance at Burger King, said his company rejected the coalition's demands because it did not employ the pickers directly and did not know how it would pay them, withhold their taxes or determine their immigration status.

"We're being asked to do something that we have legal questions about," Mr. Grover said. "We want to find a way to make sure that workers are protected and receive a decent wage."

Immokalee (which rhymes with broccoli) is 25 miles inland from Fort Myers and seems an unlikely place for a self-proclaimed "fair food movement" to begin. Its downtown is cluttered with rundown trailers and ramshackle shacks where immigrant field hands often sleep three or four to a room.

The farmworkers' coalition has garnered financial support from a dozen foundations and public support from former President Jimmy Carter; Ethel Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy's widow; the National Council of Churches; and the Presbyterian Church.

On Nov. 30, the coalition attracted more than 1,000 participants to a nine-mile march in Miami that began at the Goldman Sachs office — Goldman is one of Burger King's largest shareholders — and ended at Burger King's corporate headquarters. Many signs said, "End sweatshops in the fields," and many marchers wore yellow T-shirts with the logo "Exploitation King."

They wanted Burger King to agree to pay pickers a penny more per pound — increasing their wage to 77 cents from 45 cents per 32-pound bucket of tomatoes, up from 40 cents in 1980. Professors at Florida International University estimated the state's farm workers average $13,000 annually.

A bigger obstacle to the coalition's efforts is the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, a cooperative representing 90 percent of the state's growers. It has threatened large "noncompliance penalties" for any growers that share information about wages or tonnage picked with third parties like McDonald's. Florida grows 85 percent of the nation's winter tomatoes.

Reggie Brown, the exchange's executive vice president, said his group's lawyers said the Coalition of Immokalee Workers violated antitrust laws in joining with Yum Brands and McDonald's to get tomato growers to pay higher wages.

"I think it is un-American when you get people outside your business to dictate terms of business to you, to tell you to do something that your lawyers tell you is illegal," Mr. Brown said.

But Mark Barenberg, a law professor at Columbia University, said, "The only possible antitrust violation is by the growers since they seem to be conspiring among themselves to refuse to deal with fast-food companies that want to buy supplies made under certain specifications."

Mr. Brown disputed assertions that the tomato pickers were ill paid, saying that they averaged $12.46 an hour, and that did not include free transportation to the fields.

Angel Aguilar, a 36-year-old picker from Mexico, said: "It's a gigantic lie to say we earn $12.46 an hour. If they were to ask all of us, who earns $12.46 an hour, nobody would raise their hands."

He said he generally earned $40 to $50 a day for five to seven hours of picking, often taking home $200 to $250 a week. The pickers' days often begin at 5 a.m. when they arrive at a downtown parking lot in the hope of being chosen for a crew. The labor contractors' buses typically leave for the field at 6, arriving shortly before 7. The workers often do not begin picking until 10 or 11 because they are required to wait for the dew to burn off. They usually arrive back at the parking lot at 5 or 6 p.m.

Many live in bare-bones trailers a short walk from the parking lot, often paying weekly rent of $50 per person. A landlord whose trailer holds eight migrants will often receive $400 a week or nearly $1,800 a month. In many trailers, workers hang their food from a wire to prevent rats from getting at it.

As a result of the agreement the coalition reached with Yum Brands two years ago (after a four-year fight that included a boycott), many pickers receive an extra $5 to $25 some weeks. If 10 percent of a farm's tonnage is sold to Taco Bell in a particular week, then the workers would receive a pay supplement on 10 percent of what they picked.

The coalition's hope is that all purchasers will eventually agree to the penny-a-pound increase.

McDonald's was scheduled to begin paying the higher wage this winter, but its effort and Yum Brands' were suspended because growers pulled out after the exchange threatened fines. McDonald's and Yum Brands say they are still eager to carry out their agreement with the coalition.

"It's been our position all along that others need to step up and do more," said William Whitman, a McDonald's spokesman.

Mr. Brown of the Tomato Growers Exchange said the Immokalee coalition had improperly branded the growers as stingy and exploitative. "If we weren't paying a very competitive wage and giving these workers enough money to send to their families in Mexico and Central America, we wouldn't be able to attract a labor force," he said.

But the Rev. Noelle Damico, national coordinator of the Campaign for Fair Food for the Presbyterian Church, said the church planned to continue putting pressure on Burger King and the Tomato Growers Exchange to increase wages.

"For years we've provided charity to farmworkers in South Florida, and we started asking, 'Why are farmworkers who work six days a week and often 10 or 12 hours a day still needing help from charity?'" she said. "We saw that something was very wrong."

[Conan71]

Okay, I'll go in half with you on this one AA.

Ever lug a 30 pound bag of groceries to your car or truck in a store parking lot?  That's pretty physical.  77 cents per 32 pound bucket isn't a lot to ask.

On the other hand, the workers know what they are getting.  They can move to another area of the country and do something else to make more money if they are so inclined.  Or they can move back to Mexico and make 5 cents per bucket and suffer with lousy health care, unsanitary water supplies and bad beer.

Stephen Greenhouse?  That's a funny name for someone reporting on ag issues, don't you think.

[YoungTulsan]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

Okay, I'll go in half with you on this one AA.

Ever lug a 30 pound bag of groceries to your car or truck in a store parking lot?  That's pretty physical.  77 cents per 32 pound bucket isn't a lot to ask.

On the other hand, the workers know what they are getting.  They can move to another area of the country and do something else to make more money if they are so inclined.  Or they can move back to Mexico and make 5 cents per bucket and suffer with lousy health care, unsanitary water supplies and bad beer.

Stephen Greenhouse?  That's a funny name for someone reporting on ag issues, don't you think.

People living like slaves 8 to a trailer hanging their food from a wire hardly seem like they have the resources to fire up the computer, get on the internet, see which law firms are hiring,  load the SUV, and travel across America to where the good jobs are.  I can't believe they are argueing over 1 cent per pound.  Reading stuff like this makes me want to grow my own produce.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by YoungTulsan

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

Okay, I'll go in half with you on this one AA.

Ever lug a 30 pound bag of groceries to your car or truck in a store parking lot?  That's pretty physical.  77 cents per 32 pound bucket isn't a lot to ask.

On the other hand, the workers know what they are getting.  They can move to another area of the country and do something else to make more money if they are so inclined.  Or they can move back to Mexico and make 5 cents per bucket and suffer with lousy health care, unsanitary water supplies and bad beer.

Stephen Greenhouse?  That's a funny name for someone reporting on ag issues, don't you think.

People living like slaves 8 to a trailer hanging their food from a wire hardly seem like they have the resources to fire up the computer, get on the internet, see which law firms are hiring,  load the SUV, and travel across America to where the good jobs are.  I can't believe they are argueing over 1 cent per pound.  Reading stuff like this makes me want to grow my own produce.

Ever travel to Mexico?  I don't mean Cancun or Puerto Villarta, I mean the interior of Sonora or another state away from toursit areas.  The hyperbole spewed forth by journalists to jerk a tear out of your eye in regards to "slave-like" living conditions in the U.S. pales in comparison to the squalor these people fled in Mexico to come here to pick tomatoes.

As far as growing you own produce. it's incredibly gratifying, though not as easy as buying it at the store.  Do yourself a favor, don't grow it in your basement or spare bedroom with grow lamps.  That seems to arouse the suspicion of neighbors and the local law enforcement corps. []

[cannon_fodder]

According to the article, the pickers themselves claim they make $10 an hour (though I would believe the $12.46 figure as the workers probably report after tax earnings).  That is as much as the guy boxing the tomatoes, probably the shipping clerk, and certainly more than the guy serving the burger it ends up on.  

I made less than $10 an hour when I worked as a telemarketer, a sales associate at Kmart, on a snow removal crew (speaking of 5am) or the same crew in the summer, as a sales assistant at a software company, or as a summer farm worker (detasseler) ... I lived in a trailer with 5 people.  And yes, it sucked (and btw, rats in a home are usually a reflection of the cleanliness and food storage manners of the inhabitants.  Rats won't live there if there is nothing to eat ).

But here, I'll let you in on the key to the entire problem:

quote:The pickers' days often begin at 5 a.m. when they arrive at a downtown parking lot in the hope of being chosen for a crew.

There are more unskilled laborers WANTING to do this work than there are employers wanting to hire them.  So long as more people want to pick tomatoes for ~ $10 an hour than there are picker positions, there is not likely to be much pressure on the wages.  The fact that people are lining up for these jobs tells me it is the best thing available.  

The fact that more and more stream into the country (with or without work visas) when the conditions are well known in Mexico tells me it is better than whatever they left behind. Do you think these guys left a 3 bedroom ranch and a comfortable life in Mexico for an unknown fate in the USA?


But lets not speculate, lets step back and look at this:


Average Farmworkers Wage in the US: $8.29
Average Farmworkers Wage in Mexico: $3.60
Wage Earned by Tomato Pickers here: $10.00
http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/ESSD/ardext.nsf/24ByDocName/ESadouletPaper/$FILE/E.+Sadoulet+Paper.pdf
http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/AgOutlook/Jan2001/AO278G.pdf
2002 data - the most recent I was able to find.

So while I hope they can improve their living conditions and I would like it if everyone made a "decent wage,"  it is unlikely that it is a realistic prospect so long as the pool of unskilled laborers exceeds the need for them.  Not to mention they make three times what the average farmworker makes in Mexico and are at or above what the average farmworker makes in the U.S.  So looking at it both objectively from a market standpoint and from a statistical standpoint - the workers are well compensated for their task.

I'm sorry.  I wish teachers were millionaires and jackass NBA stars made squat, but that's just not the case.  Ironically, if the tomato farmers tried to charge more than the market is willing to pay all the jobs would end up back in Mexico and those same guys would be living 8 to a trailer earning $3.60 an hour just South of the border.