RFK Statement on
McDonald’s Partnership with SAFE
For several years, the RFK Center for Human Rights has
followed with dismay the appalling wage and work conditions
in the US agricultural industry. Over the last 25 years,
farmworker wages have been stagnant, as large-scale
corporate purchasers hold down the price of produce.
Sweatshops in the fields have become the norm, and slavery
has reemerged.
As a representative workers organization, the Coalition
of Immokalee Workers has been bringing attention to
these conditions and calling for industry-wide change.
In March of this year, Taco Bell and Yum Brands took
leadership in bringing an end to these human rights
abuses by working with the CIW to pay a fair wage and
improve working conditions in their supply chain. Given
that Taco Bell and Yum! Brands have shown such leadership,
it is clear that it is possible for McDonald’s
to do so.
It is therefore with enormous disappointment that the
RFK Center for Human Rights learns of McDonald’s
decision to partner with Socially Accountable Farm Employers
(SAFE) and to base their expectations for wages and
working conditions in their agricultural supply chain
on SAFE’s weak code of conduct. While the belated
acknowledgement of the need to end the use of forced
labor and to improve working conditions by McDonald’s
and the agricultural employers represented by SAFE is
a very welcome one, SAFE and its code of conduct cannot
be considered a serious solution to the human rights
violations now occurring in US fields.
It is important to note that SAFE’s code was written
by agricultural employers without input from the workers
it will affect. SAFE does not ensure worker participation
in true multi-stakeholder collaboration, as McDonald’s
requires of its suppliers in China, but instead undercuts
efforts to create real change in the fields. The code
also does nothing to address the urgent economic needs
of the farmworkers in McDonald’s supply chain.
Instead of guaranteeing a fair wage in the form of a
real wage increase, as Taco Bell and Yum Brands have
done, the SAFE code of conduct only commits employers
to stop stealing wages from workers.
Regardless of the strength of the code of conduct, SAFE
is not credibly independent from agricultural employers
to ensure the code’s accurate monitoring or enforcement.
Currently, SAFE is headed by the Florida Fruit and Vegetable
Association and the Redland Christian Migrant Association.
The FFVA is a membership organization of agricultural
employers, representing their interests. While the RCMA
is an excellent child care provider, it has no expertise
or experience with labor issues and, as much of its
budget is funded directly by FFVA, it cannot be considered
independent enough from agricultural employers to be
a voice for fair labor standards.
By partnering with SAFE and embracing its weak expectations
– which don’t include even such fundamental
labor standards such as the right to overtime pay and
freedom of association -- McDonald’s is setting
the bar lower even for its American agricultural producers
than it does for its suppliers in communist China. This
is a lost opportunity for one of the world's largest
and most well-known restaurant companies.
In 1966 Robert Kennedy said, “The future does
not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic
toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid
and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects.
Rather it will belong to those who can blend passion,
reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals
and great enterprises of American society.”
The RFK Center for Human Rights calls on McDonald’s
to be bold and have the courage to set a higher standard
than that of SAFE, for with new ideas and a commitment
to American ideals, McDonald’s has the ability
to change the future of the countless workers that bring
us food.
