| AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE - GLOBAL ETHICS MONITOR | Corporate Responsibility News
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LABOR ISSUES
May 15, 2003
Yum! Brands faces dissent from shareholders and protests over worker
treatment By Joanna Sabatini
NEW YORK (AFX-GEM) - Yum! Brands Inc faced dissent Thursday from both
shareholders within its annual meeting and labor rights groups protesting
outside their company headquarters over the fast-food chain's alleged
abusive treatment of workers at its suppliers.
The company would not disclose the final vote tally on a shareholder
proposal asking the owner to stop neglecting the poor treatment of workers
at its suppliers but would only say it did not receive a majority of votes.
The vote must be filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission next
week.
One of the groups that supported the shareholder proposal, citing figures
obtained from Yum! company lawyer John Daly, said the proposal received 23.7
percent of the votes but the company would not confirm this.
Yum has come under attack from activists in recent months for allegedly
mistreating tomato pickers who work for Six L's Packing Co, an Immokalee,
Florida-based supplier to Yum's Taco Bell chain.
Six L tomato pickers who protested outside the company headquarters in
Louisville, Kentucky while shareholders met inside said they are being
denied minimum wage, the right to organize and that they receive no overtime
pay or health insurance.
Another Yum fast food chain, KFC, has been under fire for slitting the
throats of chickens rather them using gas to kill them.
After pressure from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA),
KFC said earlier this month it would unveil new guidelines for the humane
treatment of poultry by the producers it buys from.
"We call to everyone's attention that the living standards now required for
animals far outstrip the living standards for workers, especially the
agricultural workers who supply YUM Brands," Oxfam America consultant
Simon Billenness said during the meeting, reading a statement by the Hartford,
Connecticut-based Center for Reflection, Education and Action, one of the
groups supporting the shareholder proposal.
The shareholder proposal filed by a group of investment managers including
Boston-based Trillium Asset Management and Christian Brothers Investment
Services called on Kentucky-based Yum to report to shareholders on labor
conditions up and down its supply chain by October.
They said the request is designed to improve the wages of workers at tomato
suppliers to Taco Bell.
Shareholder groups said they were very pleased with the voting result,
particularly because it was the first time the proposoal was voted on at the
company.
A Yum spokeswoman said the two other shareholder proposals voted on during
the annual meeting did not receive majority votes. One proposal asked Yum to
ban smoking in its company-owned restaurants by January 1, 2004.
The other shareholder proposal asked the company to hire people from various
religious backgrounds in Northern Ireland.
Yum has twenty-eight Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise restaurants in
Northern Ireland. The company also owns fast food chains Pizza Hut, KFC,
Long John Silvers, and A&W Restaurants.
Yum officials have previously told AFX Global Ethics Monitor that the
company, concerned about its reputation with consumers, had asked Six L's to
settle with the 2,000-plus workers in early 2002 but was rebuffed.
They had declined to intervene further, saying they were not party to the
dispute between Six L's and its employees.
After trying for years to gain raises and improvements in work conditions,
the tomato pickers' Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) in April 2001
launched a nationwide boycott of Taco Bell, a major buyer of tomatoes from
Six L's.
CIW said their wages have remained at the 1979 level of 7,500 dollars per
year.
Trillium submitted a similar measure last year but withdrew it when Yum
executives said they would look into labor conditions. The proposal was
refiled because Yum executives have not done as they said they would, said
Shelley Alpern, assistant vice president at Trillium.
"The issue is not going to go away - we will return the resolution if
necessary," said Ruth Rosenbaum, founder of the Center for Reflection,
Education and Action, a faith-based advocacy group.
joanna.sabatini@afxnews.com |
