|
Migrant farmworkers have long been among
the poorest workers in the United States. The typical
migrant is a 29-year-old Mexican-born male whose annual
income is less than $7,500. He is likely to be here
illegally, especially if he is among the poorest of
the poor, those who pick fruits and vegetables by hand.
And he is ripe for exploitation.
In California — where over the last two decades
some farm wages, adjusted for inflation, have declined
by about 50% — this is a familiar tale. But in
the fields of Florida, wages and working conditions
are even worse.
To earn the federal minimum wage picking tomatoes in
southern Florida, a migrant has to pick more than 320
pounds an hour. That's more than a ton in an eight-hour
day. In the fields near Immokalee, Fla., where much
of the state's tomato industry is situated, a new form
of indentured servitude flourishes. Illegal immigrants
have been forced to work for below minimum wage to pay
off their debts to people-smugglers and labor contractors.
Since the mid-1990s the Justice Department has successfully
prosecuted five cases of slavery in the region. The
close relationship between Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and
that state's agricultural interests guarantees that
little will be done at the state level to remedy the
situation. And that is why a growing national movement
insists that the multinational corporations that buy
Florida's produce must take responsibility for how migrant
workers are being treated.
In 1999, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, an organization
devoted to helping migrants, learned that Taco Bell,
headquartered in Irvine, Calif., was a major purchaser
of tomatoes from Florida growers. The coalition asked
the fast-food company to pressure its suppliers to raise
wages and protect farmworkers from abuse. When Taco
Bell failed to respond, the coalition launched a nationwide
boycott of the chain in April 2001. Can Taco Bell guarantee,
the group asks, that its tomatoes are not being harvested
with slave labor? That question has yet to be answered.
Taco Bell is not the only corporation buying tomatoes
from Immokalee growers. But it deserves to be a focus
of attention when it comes to labor policies. In Oregon,
Washington and California, Taco Bell has paid more than
$17 million to settle lawsuits charging systematic violations
of federal labor law. Moreover, its parent company,
Yum Brands, which also owns Pizza Hut and KFC, operates
more than 30,000 restaurants controlling a centralized
purchasing system that has enormous power over food
suppliers. And Taco Bell sells more Mexican food than
any other company in the United States. It shouldn't
profit from the exploitation of poor Mexican farmworkers.
After years of denying responsibility for the employment
practices of its suppliers, Taco Bell recently posted
a code of conduct on its website, stressing that all
of the chain's suppliers should obey the nation's labor
laws and that none should "produce goods …
using labor under any form of indentured servitude."
The vow is admirable. But Taco Bell has not created
a mechanism for monitoring or enforcing the new rule.
Its suppliers audit themselves. Compare that to Taco
Bell's animal welfare policy: "We are monitoring
our suppliers on an ongoing basis to determine whether
our suppliers are using humane procedures for caring
for and handling animals they supply to us." Suppliers
that mistreat animals can't do business with Taco Bell.
The company must now show the same level of concern
for the humane treatment of human beings.
The goal of the boycott is a wage increase of one penny
for every pound that a migrant picks. That would leave
wages lower than they were 25 years ago but would help
farmworkers enormously. It would scarcely affect the
price of a burrito.
And despite the protests of Florida growers, it wouldn't
lower their profits much either. In 2002, the Florida
Tomato Growers Exchange imposed a one-penny-per-pound
surcharge to cover the rising cost of a soil fumigant,
an increase that had little effect on tomato sales.
"I guess [buyers] knew they didn't have much choice
anyway," one grower told an industry trade journal.
Today, a rally on behalf of the boycott will be held
at noon in front of Taco Bell's corporate headquarters
in Irvine, to deliver a clear message that until the
company pressures its suppliers to treat migrants decently,
nobody should buy a meal at Taco Bell.
The boycott has been endorsed by student groups, organized
labor and the National Council of Churches. In November
2003, three members of the coalition received the Robert
F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, the first time it has
been given to people fighting human rights abuses within
the United States.
The campaign against Taco Bell is just the beginning.
When the company finally does the right thing, it will
be time to focus on the labor policies of the other
major fast-food chains. Until then a great deal of pointless
misery will go into the making of your Happy Meals and
Gordita Supremes.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric Schlosser is the author of "Fast Food Nation"
(Houghton Mifflin, 2001) and the collection "Reefer
Madness" (Mariner, 2004), which includes an investigation
of California migrant labor.
|
|