Have It Your Way: Bring down the King
By: Nicole Kligerman, Jason Rodney, Kirsten Wittkowski, and Keren Yohannes
Issue date: 12/7/07 Section: Opinion
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This essay was written by Nicole Kligerman '10, Jason Rodney '10, Kirsten Wittkowski '10, and Keren Yohannes '11.
It's 4:30 a.m. and you're ready to drop dead. You wished you had gotten more work done the day before, and even having sacrificed the little sleep you get, you're struggling to get by. But there's only more of this to look forward to.
Students are not the only ones who know this feeling. While we bind ourselves to books, agricultural workers throughout the country toil in fields for eight to 12 hours a day. After years of living in crowded quarters, working almost constantly and earning sub-poverty wages, tomato-pickers in Immokalee, Fla., are standing up and demanding something better. Now, they're calling students to act in solidarity by boycotting Burger King (an influential purchaser of Immokalee tomatoes) until the corporation supports the workers' demands for their basic rights to be met.
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) was formed in 1993 in order to expose and combat the daily abuses faced by these farmworkers. It is a membership-led organization of mainly Latino, Haitian and Mayan tomato pickers based in Southwest Florida who produce 2/3 of the nation's tomatoes and 90 percent of the tomatoes purchased by the fast food industry. In 2001, the Coalition launched their first large-scale campaign targeting Taco Bell and its parent company, Yum Brands, Inc. (who also own KFC, Pizza Hut, A&W, and Long John Silver's). Their demands included a pay raise of a penny more per pound for the tomatoes they pick, a workers code of conduct and third party oversight. With the support of religious, labor, and student groups the CIW successfully promoted a national boycott of Taco Bell until Yum Brands agreed to meet their demands in 2005. After a second successful victory against McDonald's in March of 2007, the CIW has now turned its attention to Burger King.
Given the historic opportunity to follow the precedent set by Yum Brands and McDonald's and work with the CIW to improve farmworker conditions, Burger King has instead made the disappointing decision to reject the CIW's demands. The company has instead launched a slander campaign, wrongly claiming that CIW itself is asking Burger King to write it a check and questioning the very real existence of the agreements with McDonald's and Taco Bell. Ironically, Burger King recently announced strict regulations on how their meatpacking suppliers should treat their livestock, yet refuses to accept guidelines for the treatment of the farmworkers who serve their growers. On top of that, the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange declared this month that the extra penny per pound would violate federal and state antitrust laws, and that the law threatens to fine growers who agree to workers' demands $100,000. It has not been explained how this wage increase would violate federal law.
It's 4:30 a.m. and you're ready to drop dead. You wished you had gotten more work done the day before, and even having sacrificed the little sleep you get, you're struggling to get by. But there's only more of this to look forward to.
Students are not the only ones who know this feeling. While we bind ourselves to books, agricultural workers throughout the country toil in fields for eight to 12 hours a day. After years of living in crowded quarters, working almost constantly and earning sub-poverty wages, tomato-pickers in Immokalee, Fla., are standing up and demanding something better. Now, they're calling students to act in solidarity by boycotting Burger King (an influential purchaser of Immokalee tomatoes) until the corporation supports the workers' demands for their basic rights to be met.
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) was formed in 1993 in order to expose and combat the daily abuses faced by these farmworkers. It is a membership-led organization of mainly Latino, Haitian and Mayan tomato pickers based in Southwest Florida who produce 2/3 of the nation's tomatoes and 90 percent of the tomatoes purchased by the fast food industry. In 2001, the Coalition launched their first large-scale campaign targeting Taco Bell and its parent company, Yum Brands, Inc. (who also own KFC, Pizza Hut, A&W, and Long John Silver's). Their demands included a pay raise of a penny more per pound for the tomatoes they pick, a workers code of conduct and third party oversight. With the support of religious, labor, and student groups the CIW successfully promoted a national boycott of Taco Bell until Yum Brands agreed to meet their demands in 2005. After a second successful victory against McDonald's in March of 2007, the CIW has now turned its attention to Burger King.
Given the historic opportunity to follow the precedent set by Yum Brands and McDonald's and work with the CIW to improve farmworker conditions, Burger King has instead made the disappointing decision to reject the CIW's demands. The company has instead launched a slander campaign, wrongly claiming that CIW itself is asking Burger King to write it a check and questioning the very real existence of the agreements with McDonald's and Taco Bell. Ironically, Burger King recently announced strict regulations on how their meatpacking suppliers should treat their livestock, yet refuses to accept guidelines for the treatment of the farmworkers who serve their growers. On top of that, the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange declared this month that the extra penny per pound would violate federal and state antitrust laws, and that the law threatens to fine growers who agree to workers' demands $100,000. It has not been explained how this wage increase would violate federal law.
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