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A: First, Taco Bell directly profits from farmworkers’
sub-poverty wages and substandard working conditions—including
no right to overtime pay, no right to organize, and
no benefits whatsoever. Taco Bell pays artificially
low prices for the tomatoes Immokalee farmworkers pick,
and the extreme exploitation of farm labor in the production
chain keeps these prices low.
Second, Taco Bell and its parent company Yum! Brands
actually have a hand in keeping those prices so low
and therefore bear a significant degree of responsibility
for the inhumane working conditions of the men and women
who pick their tomatoes. Yum is the world’s largest
restaurant company – larger than McDonald’s
– and is made up of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC,
Long John Silvers, and A&W Restaurants. Through
the unparalleled impact of the Unified Foodservice Purchasing
Co-op (UFPC), the corporation that pools the buying
power of Yum’s five major brands and leverages
that power to obtain the lowest prices possible for
its client chains, Taco Bell and Yum exert a strong
downward pressure on their suppliers’ prices.
In agriculture, this translates directly into a downward
pressure on the wages and working conditions for farmworkers.
You don’t have to take our word for it. The UFPC’s
own website, a site designed for business-to-business
communication, makes quite clear the mission and market
power of the purchasing cooperative that manages Yum’s
supply chains:
Cooperation is catching on. Co-ops make businesses more
profitable! United Foodservice Purchasing Co-op, LLC
(UFPC) manages the supply chain for all corporate- and
most franchise-owned A&W, KFC, Long John Silvers,
Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell restaurant outlets in the US…
We obtain low prices by making volume purchase commitments…
The annual purchase volume for UFPC is approximately
$4.35 billion, making it the largest purchasing cooperative
of its kind in the quick service restaurant industry.
(“About UFPC,” www.ufpc.com, emphasis added)
A study released by Oxfam America in March 2004, “Like
Machines in the Fields: Workers without Rights in American
Agriculture,” goes into even more detail on the
power that corporate giants like Yum hold over the agricultural
industry (www.oxfamamerica.org/pdfs/labor_report_04.pdf).
The study cites a significant shift in an important
economic indicator, known as the “Marketing Spread”
(the disparity between the price a consumer pays for
a product and the price received by the grower), as
concrete evidence of the growing power of major corporate
buyers like Yum over prices at the farm level. “Whereas
in 1990 grower-shippers received 41% of the retail price
of tomatoes, by 2000 they were receiving barely one
quarter (25%)” (page 35).
In short, major corporate buyers -- companies like WalMart,
McDonald’s, and Yum, whose sheer economic muscle
is unprecedented -- have increasingly used their buying
power to drive down their costs, squeezing their suppliers
for the deepest possible discounts on produce. In turn,
growers have sought to maintain their margins by squeezing
their suppliers, and in particular the one supplier
with the least power to negotiate its price, labor.
While growers cannot demand cheaper tractors from John
Deere, cheaper chemicals from Monsanto, or a break on
the interest rate from their bank, they can hold wages
stagnant, or even cut the piece rate, and still obtain
desperately poor workers to pick their crops. The Oxfam
study concludes: “Squeezed by the buyers of their
produce, growers pass on the costs and risks imposed
on them to those on the lowest rung of the supply chain:
the farmworkers they employ” (page 36).
Third, there is factual information linking Taco Bell
directly with at least one large Florida-based tomato
grower. In the agricultural industry, as in other industries
where sub-contracting is prevalent (such as the apparel
industry), supplier information is regarded as confidential,
competitive information. It is not readily available
to the public. However, in an article on the emerging
phenomenon of contract pricing in the produce industry,
the industry journal "The Packer” confirmed
the existence of a long-term contractual relationship
between Taco Bell and the Six L's Packing Company, one
of its Immokalee-based suppliers and one of the biggest
producers of fresh tomatoes in the country
(“Shipper takes non-conformist approach,”
Tracy Roselle, December, 1999).
TOP
A: Yes. The US Department of Labor’s National
Agricultural Workers Survey (January, 2000) reported
that farmworkers’ median annual income is roughly
$7,500, an amount far below the national poverty level.
That same report goes on to conclude that farmworkers’
“low wages, sub-poverty annual earnings, significant
periods of un-and underemployment… all add up
to a labor force in significant economic distress."
In-depth investigations by two of Florida's leading
newspapers -- the Miami Herald and the Palm Beach Post
-- published during the past year confirm the DOL’s
findings, not only reporting widespread poverty, sub-standard
housing, and inhumane working conditions, but actually
uncovering new cases of involuntary servitude (Miami
Herald, “Florida's Fields of Despair: Destitute
Farmworkers Exploited," 9/03; Palm Beach Post,
“Modern-day Slavery: Still Harvesting Shame,”
12/03).
In light of the Department of Labor’s findings
and the abundance of credible press investigations into
farmworker poverty, to question whether US farmworkers
are indeed poor seems somewhat absurd. Yet Taco Bell
does just that in its own defense. Taco Bell has repeatedly
claimed that one of its suppliers in Immokalee says
it pays its workers $9 per hour (though Taco Bell admits
that the supplier in question refuses to open its books
-- even to Taco Bell -- to substantiate its claim).
To quote $9 per hour as an average farmworker wage is
-- at best -- disingenuous. The CIW has provided Taco
Bell with ample information about the pay rate and pay
system used in the tomato industry. In brief, farmworkers
in the tomato harvest are paid by an antiquated piece
rate system– 40-50 cents for every 32-lb bucket
of produce they pick. This rate has not changed significantly
in over 25 years. Despite the legal requirement that
pay by the piece rate must at least equal the minimum
wage, there are generally no time clocks in the fields,
and as a result farmworkers’ hours frequently
go unrecorded and unpaid (i.e., time spent traveling
between fields and between harvests, time waiting for
the fields to dry before picking, time waiting for crops
to ripen during which a worker must make him/herself
available every day regardless of whether or not there
is work that day, work days missed due to weather, etc.).
Further, wage fraud -- including the systematic falsification
of hours to conceal minimum wage violations -- is well-documented
in the agricultural industry and has been the subject
of innumerable class action lawsuits across the country
for years.
In short, there are so many variables that affect what
any individual farmworker may earn at any given moment
that an hourly, daily or weekly measure of pay is effectively
meaningless. The only truly useful measure of farmworker
earnings is the average yearly income ($7,500/yr), as
it is taken over a long enough period to obviate most
of the factors that cause measures taken over a shorter
time to vary so widely.
Companies like Taco Bell who purchase the produce
and benefit from sub-poverty wages should not hide behind
the lack of accountability and transparency in agriculture.
Rather, as direct beneficiaries of the exploitative
practices of agriculture, they need to take proactive
steps in modernizing the industry.
To our knowledge, Taco Bell has no system in place to
investigate or verify compliance with any basic labor
standards, nor do they have any files or records of
past investigations on labor conditions in their supply
chain. They do have supply chain inspectors, but the
issues covered in their inspections are food safety
and quality standards, not labor
conditions or human rights abuses. As far as we know,
Taco Bell uses no independent auditors for the investigation
of labor conditions in its supply chain.
TOP
A: Taco Bell claims that it purchases only a
small percentage of Florida’s overall tomato production,
and therefore has only a limited influence over its
suppliers.
By making this claim, Taco Bell is, intentionally or
otherwise, obscuring the reality of its purchasing arrangements.
In truth, the amount purchased specifically by Taco
Bell is rendered immaterial by the fact that Taco Bell's
relationship to its suppliers is mediated by Yum's purchasing
coop, the UFPC. Consequently, the price Taco Bell pays
for its tomatoes is determined, through volume discounts,
by the collective purchasing power of all five of Yum's
major brands, not by the amount Taco Bell consumes on
its own. That is precisely the reason for the UFPC's
existence, or any purchasing cooperative, for that matter.
As such, the only figure of any real value is the collective
demand of Yum's five brands for tomatoes purchased from
Florida-based suppliers, a figure Taco Bell has yet
to release.
Yum Brands is the largest restaurant
company in the world – bigger than McDonald’s
– and as such wields far more power over its suppliers
than it will acknowledge publicly. In the words of the
Honorable Mary Robinson, former United Nations Commissioner
on Human Rights, “You can’t pass the buck.
You are profiting by exploitation and have the power
to change what is happening
in the fields. So, pay this penny a pound more for workers
rights, and assume your fair share of responsibility.”
TOP
A: Yes. The notion that multi-billion dollar
corporations that profit from substandard labor conditions
in their suppliers’ operations should be held
accountable for those conditions is not new, nor unique
to this boycott. But unlike Taco Bell, other industry
leaders in similar situations have responded to revelations
of abuse in their supply chains by taking positive measures
to address those abuses.
Like Taco Bell, Starbucks has also been the target of
consumer campaigns questioning unfair labor practices
in its supply chain. Like Taco Bell, Starbucks initially
defended itself by claiming it had neither the ability
nor responsibility to address these problems. Starbucks,
for example, does not grow coffee, nor does it directly
employ workers who pick their coffee in plantations
around the world. And, as Starbucks frequently asserted
in its defense, the company is not a major player in
the coffee market, accounting for less than 2% of overall
world demand.
Yet through the actions of informed consumers, Starbucks
has been obliged to recognize the principle of “Fair
Trade Coffee” and to take the first steps toward
providing the option to buy fairly traded coffee in
their over 8,000 stores. Although much more progress
is needed, Starbucks is now beginning to leverage its
tremendous brand value and market presence to spread
the concept of fairly traded coffee to consumers throughout
the world. In this light, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz
had this to say in a recent USA Today interview:
“We’re living in a time where the consumer
is doing something they’ve never done before.
They’re performing their own audit, a cultural
audit of what a company stands for. That cultural audit
has to do with your culture, your values, how you take
care of your people, are you giving back to the community,
and how you’re serving the greater good.”
(Sept. 9, 2003)
Similarly, when leaders of the US chocolate industry
were faced with revelations of modern-day slavery in
the cocoa plantations where they purchase a percentage
of their cocoa beans, president of the Chocolate Manufacturer’s
Association, Larry Graham, said, “We need to be
permanently concerned where the cocoa beans come from,
the impact of cocoa on the environment, and how the
workers are treated… This is where the industry
has changed forever,” (“Chocolate industry
accepts responsibility for child labor practices,”
Knight-Ridder newspapers, May 2002).
As a leader in the fast-food industry and a multi-billion
dollar brand, Taco Bell’s shadow falls on the
companies with which it does business. Along with the
benefits of being a household name come the costs of
assuring that its business practices – and business
partners – are beyond reproach.
In at least one aspect of their supply chain, Taco Bell
and Yum! Brands have begun to recognize that reality.
In Yum’s own words, although they do not “own,
raise, or transport animals… as a major purchaser
of food products, we have the opportunity and responsibility
to influence the way animals supplied
to us are treated” (“Animal Welfare,”
www.yum.com). With this campaign, we are only asking
that Yum give the same consideration to farmworkers
they already claim to give to farm animals.
TOP
A: When the CIW uses the word slavery, we do not mean
“slave-like” or “resembling slavery"
--- rather, we are referring to conditions that meet
the high standard of proof and definition of slavery
under US federal laws.
Modern-day slavery is a violation of the 13th Amendment.
The cases we have helped bring to justice have been
prosecuted by the US Department of Justice Civil Rights
Division either under laws forbidding peonage and indentured
servitude passed just after the Civil War during Reconstruction
(18 U.S.C. Sections 1581-9) or under the 2000 Victims
of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, which prohibits
the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision,
or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through
the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose
of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt
bondage, or slavery.
In our latest case, three Florida-based
agricultural employers convicted in federal court on
slavery, extortion, and weapons charges were sentenced
to a total of nearly 35 years in prison and the forfeiture
of $3 million in assets. The men, who employed over
700 farmworkers, threatened workers with death if they
were to try to leave, and pistol-whipped and assaulted
-- at gunpoint -- passenger van service drivers who
gave rides to farmworkers leaving
the area. The case was brought to trial by federal authorities
from the Department of Justice (Civil Rights Division)
after two years of investigation by the CIW.
TOP
A: Yum Brands is Taco Bell's parent company,
but Taco Bell is the sole focus of the boycott at this
time. However, the Center for Reflection, Education
and Action (CREA) and several other institutional shareholders
filed a shareholder resolution calling on Yum to provide
detailed reporting on environmental and labor rights
impact in its supply chain. The resolution was first
filed in 2003 and was taken up at the company’s
annual meeting on May 20, 2004 for the second year.
The most recent numbers released by Yum indicate that
33% of Yum shareholders voted in favor of this resolution,
well beyond the numbers needed to bring it back to a
vote next year. For a full article on the details of
the resolution see www.pcusa.org/boycott.
For some perspective, when socially responsible resolutions
are introduced at a company's annual meeting for the
first time, the hope is that they will achieve somewhere
between 3% - 7% of the shareholder vote. By winning
more than 30% of Yum shareholders’ vote, the resolution
has put Yum and the entire fast-food industry on notice
that many shareholders have a concern about how the
products a company sells are produced and wish corporations
like Yum to take responsibility for its product from
harvest to market. TOP
A: No. The tomatoes grown in Immokalee are fresh-picked
tomatoes that are diced into chalupas or tossed into
salads. It is important that the fruit be free from
bruising and other imperfections. The only way to avoid
bruising tomatoes is to hand pick them. Machine-picked
tomatoes, which are principally grown in California,
are used for pastes and sauces. TOP
A: No. Florida is the leading producer of tomatoes
in the United States. According to the Florida Tomato
Committee, Florida tomatoes account for 95% of all US
grown tomatoes eaten by Americans from October to June,
and 45% of all tomatoes consumed in the US year-round
are Florida tomatoes. You simply can’t do business
on the scale Taco Bell and Yum do business and not purchase
your tomatoes from Florida, particularly given the prohibitive
transportation costs of bringing tomatoes from Florida’s
next biggest competitor, Mexico, to the major East Coast
markets. TOP
A: No. We are not asking Taco Bell to stop buying
tomatoes. Rather, we are asking the company to use its
influence as a fast-food leader to clean up the exploitative
conditions under which farmworkers are laboring in its
supply chain. There is no way Taco Bell President Emil
Brolick will be able to tell whether you eat your taco
with or without tomatoes. He surely doesn’t care.
He'll only know, and care, if you don't buy one and
if you write and tell him why. TOP
A: No. Farmworkers are not covered by the National
Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Farmworkers and domestic
workers were specifically excluded from this legislation
when it was passed in 1938. Unlike laborers in other
industries, agricultural laborers are not covered by
the NLRA so the growers who employ them are under no
obligation to dialogue with worker representatives.
And workers have no recourse to the National Labor Relations
Board if they are fired or discriminated against for
raising issues with their employers. TOP
A:No, Florida does not. When people think about
farmworkers organizing for their rights they often think
of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers (UFW) union
in California. As a result of the
UFW’s efforts in California, the right of farmworkers
to organize is now protected by a state collective bargaining
law specific to agriculture. TOP
A: Partially. Farmworkers are excluded from the
overtime provisions of the FLSA. This means that unlike
almost all other workers in this country, farmworkers
do not have the right to overtime pay after working
more than 40 hours in a week. The Fair Labor Standards
Act does not limit either the number of hours in a day
or the number of days in a week that an employer may
require an employee to work, as long as the employee
is at least 16 years old. While it requires that overtime
be paid at time and a half to covered employees, all
agricultural workers are explicitly exempt from coverage
and therefore are not entitled to overtime pay. The
DOL explains, "Employees who are employed in agriculture
as that term is defined in the Act are exempt from the
overtime pay provisions. They do not have to be paid
time and one half their regular rates of pay for hours
worked in excess of forty per week." (From DOL
Fact Sheet #12: Agricultural Employers Under the Fair
Labor Standards Act (FLSA))
Agricultural workers are covered under the minimum wage
standards of the FLSA. According to wage and hour law,
all covered workers' wages must equate to at least the
statutory minimum wage for all hours actually worked.
The Department of Labor is responsible for ensuring
employer compliance.
Enforcement of the minimum wage laws in the fields,
however, is another issue, and as a result many workers
never receive minimum wage. There are few resources
to police such a huge industry, and as a result, workers
complain regularly of receiving less than the minimum
wage and large, class action lawsuits are filed year
after year on behalf of farmworkers to collect unpaid
minimum wages. TOP
A: The vast majority of farmworkers receive absolutely
no benefits whatsoever; no health insurance, no sick
leave, no vacation, and no pension. TOP
A: The piece rate is the amount that workers
are paid for harvesting a particular amount of produce.
In the tomato industry workers are paid per 32 pound
bucket that they pick and haul. In other industries
like citrus other measures and rates apply. TOP
A: No. One of Taco Bell’s suppliers, the
Six L's Packing Company, pays 40 cents for every 32
pound bucket. They are the lowest paying grower. The
highest paying grower pays 50 cents per bucket. If the
40 cent piece rate had simply kept pace with inflation
since 1980, farmworkers would be earning 92 cents a
bucket today (Consumer Price Index, Inflation
Calculator, http://www.bls.gov/cpi/home.htm#data). TOP
A: Yes, payroll taxes are deducted from workers
paychecks in agriculture just as they are in any other
industry. TOP
A: Farmworkers who harvest tomatoes can work
about 10 months of the year actually picking tomatoes.
For seven months of the year (November - May), workers
can pick in the Immokalee area. During the summer months,
which are approximately three, farmworkers can travel
up to northern Florida and the East Coast states to
continue picking during the summer season. For the rest
of the year, when picking is not available locally,
workers can find employment in the various tasks of
cultivation in the tomato industry -- laying plastic,
planting, pruning, tying, and pulling up plastic. TOP
In many cases, workers pick for the same Florida-based
company year-round, even while working in different
states. One of Taco Bell’s principal suppliers,
for example, is based in Immokalee, but has operations
in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia,
Maryland, and Pennsylvania, and its Immokalee-based
crews work the fields in all those states. TOP
A: No. The staging area where workers seek work
daily from crew leaders and are transported by labor
bus is in Immokalee. It's a big parking lot by a grocery
store. Workers gather beginning at 4:30am. Some of the
fields are as close as 20 miles away. But others are
more than 100 miles away. Workers can spend 2 hours
just riding to the fields. TOP
A: About 3,500 workers pick tomatoes in southwest
Florida. TOP
A: Most farmworkers live in trailers - sometimes
with as many as 12 men to a trailer. The going rental
rate for a single wide trailer in Immokalee is roughly
$200-$250 per week (about $1,000 per month). Since that
is more than the average farmworker earns in total wages,
the rent structure effectively builds overcrowding in
as workers are obliged to move in as many people to
the trailer as is necessary to pay the rent. Other farm
workers live in labor camps, often located in or around
the fields where they work, on their employer’s
property. The labor camps are in remote areas and are
generally guarded. Until June of 2002, one of Taco Bell’s
principal suppliers did not permit their workers to
receive visitors on their labor camp at any time. A
judge issued an injunction requiring the company to
allow their workers to receive visitors after workers
complained through the CIW. TOP
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