|
When farm workers from the Coalition of
Immokalee Workers camped outside of Taco Bell corporate
headquarters in Irvine, Calif., last month -- with dozens
staging an unprecedented hunger strike, calling on Taco
Bell to take responsibility for sub-poverty wages and
labor abuses in the Florida fields where its tomatoes
are picked -- they asked reporters to pose one simple
question to Taco Bell's spokespeople:
Can Taco Bell guarantee to its customers that the tomatoes
in its chalupas and quesadillas were not picked by slave
labor?
The workers did not ask the question lightly. Over the
past five years, U.S. Justice Department officials have
successfully prosecuted five slavery rings operating
in the fields of South Florida. The Coalition of Immokalee
Workers, the organization spearheading the Taco Bell
boycott, was instrumental in the discovery, investigation
and prosecution of four of those cases. Three of the
cases involved tomato pickers in the Immokalee area,
the heart of Florida's $600 million tomato industry.
Given that farm managers involved in the slavery cases
have denied any knowledge of the slavery operations
on their farms, it would be virtually impossible for
any tomato buyer further along the distribution chain
to claim ethically that its products were free of forced
labor.
Yet this was what a Taco Bell representative had to
say to one reporter, Wisconsin radio journalist Mike
Moon, when he asked the workers' question: "Slavery
was abolished years ago in this country, Mike, in case
you didn't know."
On the 10th day of the farm workers' hunger strike,
religious leaders from across the country asked the
workers to end their fast and to allow supporters to
take up their cause. Archbishop Roger Mahony of Los
Angeles, leader of the country's largest Catholic community,
wrote to the workers: "I encourage Catholics to
stand with you by fasting during Lent as a sign of solidarity
with you and in prayer that you soon see a successful
conclusion to this campaign. As a sign of goodwill,
I encourage the leadership of Taco Bell to meet with
you in the coming days to seek a fair and peaceful solution
to this dispute."
When religious leaders who broke bread with the striking
farm workers tried to deliver Cardinal Mahony's message
to Taco Bell executives, security guards locked the
doors to the company's glass skyscraper. The delegation
was forced to slide the letter under the door.
Taco Bell insisted that the company would not "get
involved in a supplier's labor dispute," and that
the workers' efforts were "misdirected." Compare
Taco Bell's response with that of the U.S. chocolate
industry when faced with the revelation of modern-day
slavery in its supply chain.
In June 2001, Sudarsan Raghavan, Knight Ridder's Nairobi
bureau chief, and Sumana Chatterjee, Knight Ridder Washington
correspondent, produced "A Taste of Slavery,"
a shocking special report on their investigation of
labor abuses in West African cocoa plantations -- the
source of more than 40 percent of the American chocolate
industry's cocoa beans.
After initially attempting to distance themselves from
their suppliers' sins, the chocolate giants -- companies
such as Hershey's and Mars -- did an about-face and
took responsibility for the human rights abuses in their
supply chain. In an article Knight Ridder newspapers
headlined, "Chocolate industry accepts responsibility
for child labor practices," Larry Graham, president
of the Chocolate Manufacturers Association, said, "We
need to be permanently concerned with where cocoa comes
from, the impact of cocoa on the environment, and how
the workers are treated." He continued, "That
is where the industry has changed forever."
In a historic move, chocolate manufacturers, human rights
groups, unions and the Ivory Coast government signed
a pact aimed at ending labor abuse in the industry.
According to the same article, "Experts say it
will be the first time an agricultural industry has
taken responsibility for its product from harvesting
to market."
Lucas Benitez of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers,
a farm worker who has picked tomatoes and participated
in the investigation of several of the recent slavery
cases in Immokalee, is disgusted by Taco Bell's indifference.
He points to a company policy -- prominently featured
on Taco Bell's parent corporation, Yum! Brands Inc.,
Web site -- to protect the rights of animals in their
suppliers' operations.
The site reads: "Yum! Brands is the owner of restaurant
companies and, as such, does not own, raise, or transport
animals. However, as a major purchaser of food products,
we have the opportunity, and responsibility, to influence
the way animals are treated. We take that responsibility
very seriously, and are working with our suppliers on
an ongoing basis to make sure the most humane procedures
for caring for and handling animals are in place. As
a consequence, we only deal with suppliers who maintain
the very highest standards and share our commitment
to animal welfare."
Mr. Benitez says: "We have investigated cases where
people have been pistol-whipped, held at gunpoint, beaten
and told they would have their tongues cut out if they
talked to the authorities. Of course, that's the extreme
of exploitation in the fields, but sweatshop conditions
-- sub-poverty wages, no right to organize, no right
to overtime pay, no health insurance, no benefits at
all -- are our everyday reality. And yet Taco Bell treats
us as if we had nothing whatsoever to do with their
industry.
"Taco Bell has a policy that it will not buy food
from contractors that mistreat animals," Mr. Benitez
said. "All we are asking is that they have the
same policy for humans."
END
|
|