Mr. James Skinner, CEO
McDonald’s Corporation
2111 McDonald’s Drive
Oak Brook, IL 60523

Dear Mr. Skinner,

As the Episcopal Liaison to Migrant Farmworkers for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, I have had the opportunity to visit farmworker communities throughout the United States. In November of 2004, I traveled to Florida and visited with the (CIW). I celebrated Mass for over 400 CIW members and heard from CIW leaders about their efforts, at that time, to work together with Taco Bell to ensure fair wages and working conditions in the fields.

Joyfully, since that visit, Taco Bell has entered into an agreement with the CIW and everyday farmworkers in Taco Bell’s tomato supply chain are benefiting from that agreement.

As Auxilliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago, I have been closely watching the CIW’s efforts to reach out to McDonald’s in order to similarly improve the miserable wages and working conditions in McDonald’s tomato supply chain. To date, I have been extremely disappointed in McDonald’s failure to work together with the CIW to
make changes in its supply chain that will directly improve the lives of farmworkers.

McDonald’s attempt to silence the voice of the CIW farmworkers is unacceptable and unworthy of a company that prides itself on social responsibility. McDonald’s excluded the CIW from the process of developing its grower standards, resulting in standards that fall considerably short of bringing any real measure of improvements to
farmworkers’ deplorable working conditions. Likewise, McDonald’s recent study of farmworker wages ignored both the CIW and numerous well-respected, independent studies—all of which make it quite clear that farmworkers earn sub-poverty wages—and resulted in a hastily-compiled, highly-criticized document that has done little more than cast doubt on your company’s hard-earned reputation as a leader in social responsibility.

Catholic social tradition teaches us of the importance of participation in the issues that affect one’s life and it is the farmworkers in the fields who most intimately know the changes that need to be urgently made. The participation of the CIW in developing and enforcing a meaningful code of conduct and an improved wage system will only help McDonald’s to ensure the highest standards of social responsibility to its consumers.

Today, those who harvest the tomatoes that grace McDonald’s hamburgers and salads earn sub-poverty wages that have not risen for decades. Catholic teaching is very clear in its call for fair wages and it is with the strength of that teaching that I call upon McDonald’s to increase wages in its tomato supply chain so that farmworkers and
their families may live in dignity.

I urge McDonald’s to change its course and begin in earnest to work together with the CIW to ensure justice and dignity for those who harvest McDonald’s tomatoes. May God bless your work together.

Most Reverend John R. Manz
Auxiliary Bishop of Chicago