Lucas Benitez's Remarks at McDonald's Shareholder Meeting
Oak Brook, IL
May 25, 2006
My name is Lucas Benitez and I´m representing MCG-JMR Joint Venture.
I am a leader of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworker organization in southwest Florida.
Today there is a human rights crisis in the fields of Florida.
The workers who pick the tomatoes that go in McDonald´s sandwiches and salads work under conditions that can only be described as sweatshops:
- Sub-poverty wages,
- no right to overtime pay,
- no right to organize,
- and no benefits.
Five operations of modern day slavery have been discovered and prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice in Florida since 1997, freeing over 1,000 workers.
The farmworkers of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers are calling on McDonald´s to work directly with us to address these conditions.
According to former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, “There is no doubt that McDonald´s has the resources and clout to do this. It only lacks the will.”
However, McDonald´s has decided to involve itself in a public relations strategy that not only avoids the real issues at the heart of human rights abuses in Florida, but also threatens to reverse the fragile gains won by farmworkers in salaries and labor relations in recent years.
My question is, until when will McDonald´s stop seeing this human rights crisis as a public relations campaign and work together with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to ensure real rights for us, the farmworkers, that are a part of their supply chain?
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Click here to read remarks by Alliance for Fair Food representative, Amanda Shanor.