[This should be fun to leaflet at Christmastime]
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/29/opinion/29schlosser.html
The New York Times
November 29, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
Penny Foolish
By ERIC SCHLOSSER
THE migrant farm workers who harvest tomatoes in South Florida have
one of the nations most backbreaking jobs. For 10 to 12 hours a day,
they pick tomatoes by hand, earning a piece-rate of about 45 cents
for every 32-pound bucket. During a typical day each migrant picks,
carries and unloads two tons of tomatoes. For their efforts, this
holiday season many of them are about to get a 40 percent pay cut.
Floridas tomato growers have long faced pressure to reduce operating
costs; one way to do that is to keep migrant wages as low as
possible. Although some of the pressure has come from increased
competition with Mexican growers, most of it has been forcefully
applied by the largest purchaser of Florida tomatoes: American fast
food chains that want millions of pounds of cheap tomatoes as a
garnish for their hamburgers, tacos and salads.
In 2005, Florida tomato pickers gained their first significant pay
raise since the late 1970s when Taco Bell ended a consumer boycott
by agreeing to pay an extra penny per pound for its tomatoes, with
the extra cent going directly to the farm workers. Last April,
McDonalds agreed to a similar arrangement, increasing the wages of
its tomato pickers to about 77 cents per bucket. But Burger King,
whose headquarters are in Florida, has adamantly refused to pay the
extra penny and its refusal has encouraged tomato growers to cancel
the deals already struck with Taco Bell and McDonalds.
This month the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, representing 90
percent of the states growers, announced that it will not allow any
of its members to collect the extra penny for farm workers. Reggie
Brown, the executive vice president of the group, described the
surcharge for poor migrants as pretty much near un-American.
Migrant farm laborers have long been among Americas most
impoverished workers. Perhaps 80 percent of the migrants in Florida
are illegal immigrants and thus especially vulnerable to abuse.
During the past decade, the United States Justice Department has
prosecuted half a dozen cases of slavery among farm workers in
Florida. Migrants have been driven into debt, forced to work for
nothing and kept in chained trailers at night. The Coalition of
Immokalee Workers a farm worker alliance based in Immokalee, Fla.
has done a heroic job improving the lives of migrants in the state,
investigating slavery cases and negotiating the penny-per-pound
surcharge with fast food chains.
Now the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange has threatened a fine of
$100,000 for any grower who accepts an extra penny per pound for
migrant wages. The organization claims that such a surcharge would
violate federal and state laws related to antitrust, labor and
racketeering. It has not explained how that extra penny would break
those laws; nor has it explained why other surcharges routinely
imposed by the growers (for things like higher fuel costs) are
perfectly legal.
The prominent role that Burger King has played in rescinding the pay
raise offers a spectacle of yuletide greed worthy of Charles
Dickens. Burger King has justified its behavior by claiming that it
has no control over the labor practices of its suppliers. Florida
growers have a right to run their businesses how they see fit, a
Burger King spokesman told The St. Petersburg Times.
Yet the company has adopted a far more activist approach when the
issue is the well-being of livestock. In March, Burger King
announced strict new rules on how its meatpacking suppliers should
treat chickens and hogs. As for human rights abuses, Burger King has
suggested that if the poor farm workers of southern Florida need
more money, they should apply for jobs at its restaurants.
Three private equity firms Bain Capital, the Texas Pacific Group and
Goldman Sachs Capital Partners control most of Burger Kings stock.
Last year, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd C. Blankfein,
earned the largest annual bonus in Wall Street history, and this
year he stands to receive an even larger one. Goldman Sachs has
served its investors well lately, avoiding the subprime mortgage
meltdown and, according to Business Week, doubling the value of its
Burger King investment within three years.
Telling Burger King to pay an extra penny for tomatoes and provide a
decent wage to migrant workers would hardly bankrupt the company.
Indeed, it would cost Burger King only $250,000 a year. At Goldman
Sachs, that sort of money shouldnt be too hard to find. In 2006, the
bonuses of the top 12 Goldman Sachs executives exceeded $200 million
more than twice as much money as all of the roughly 10,000 tomato
pickers in southern Florida earned that year. Now Mr. Blankfein
should find a way to share some of his companys good fortune with
the workers at the bottom of the food chain.
Eric Schlosser is the author of Fast Food Nation and Reefer Madness.