Farmworkers Call For Corporations to Respect Their Rights
"It's important to recognize the purchasing prices paid by YUM and Taco Bell have a direct connection with the conditions the workers face." UN High Commissioner of Human Rights Mary Robinson
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| Raymond Offenheiser of Oxfam America, center, speaking in front of a pyramid of 125 buckets. Farmworkers in Florida would need to fill all these buckets in one day to earn $50. By: Greg Asbed/CIW |
The speakers joined the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworkers' rights organization based in Florida, in urging fast-food giant YUM brands to pay one penny more per pound for its tomatoes, and see that this pay increase is passed on to farmworkers.
Farmworkers make very little money, sometimes under $7,500 a year, and endure the worst working conditions in the country, according to a new report released by Oxfam America, Like Machines in the Fields: Workers Without Rights in American Agriculture (PDF, 968KB). The report documents the deplorable situation for farmworkers: They are exempt from federal laws that require a minimum wage and overtime pay, and have no right to organize unions. Farmworkers generally live and work in unhealthy and dangerous conditions. As many as 300,000 farmworkers each year suffer from pesticide poisoning, far more than any other line of work in America.
Oxfam America's partner, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), is especially concerned with the piece rate Florida's tomato pickers earn: the wage has not changed in 20 years, and farmworkers now effectively earn 30% less than in 1980 for picking tomatoes.
Speakers from CIW and Oxfam America appeared before a huge pyramid of 125 large red buckets, all of which would need to be filled for a worker to amass two tons, for which they would earn $50. It's an incredible load, and the speakers were pointed out that the fast food industry benefits from this unfair arrangement. Lucas Benitez of CIW, a farmworker rights leader and recent recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, said "We're the ones paying the consequences. We don't want fast food, but fair food."
YUM Brands is the largest fast-food company in the world and a big buyer of Florida tomatoes. It owns Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, and other restaurant chains. YUM purchases about 40 million pounds of tomatoes a year, and is just one of the largest companies pushing the cost of low-priced fast food down onto workers.
As part of the Oxfam international Make Trade Fair campaign, Oxfam America is asking YUM to alter the way it works with produce suppliers to help workers at the bottom of the supply chain to make a decent living. Raymond Offenheiser of Oxfam America called for change: "We publicly call on the CEO's, the boards of directors and the major investors in these leading [food] companies to guarantee that their supply chains adhere to the highest standards of respect and responsibility for workers rights," he said in Immokalee.
President Robinson said she was familiar with the areas of Chiapas and Oaxaca, Mexico, where many of the farmworkers in Immokalee came from. "I know the conditions they left; they came here hoping for the American dream. They must be so disappointed, because now they are so exploited. These workers are excluded from core labor standards, and we saw people living in containers, and mobile homes with six or seven men in one room. It was stuffy on a warm day like today but I can't imagine what it must be like in the heat of summer. It's important to recognize the purchasing prices paid by YUM and Taco Bell have a direct connection with the conditions the workers face. It would be good for a senior representative of YUM to visit Immokalee and see the situation on the ground here."