THE SOUTHERN ILLINOISIAN

October 17, 2006

Migrant farm workers, activists protest McDonald's during visit

BY CALEB HALE, THE SOUTHERN

CARBONDALE - An activist group for migrant farm workers visited Southern Illinois University Carbondale Monday, claiming McDonald's restaurants are making profits from the "slave labor" of tomato pickers in Florida.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers - a group named for the Florida town that is home to one of the largest migrant farm worker communities in the U.S. - is on a tour to Oak Brook, home of the McDonald's corporation. Along the way, members are bringing attention to the laborers' poor working conditions and low wages at universities, targeting the same 18-24 demographic they say the company advertises to. SIUC is one of about 30 campuses the group has hit so far. Throughout the day they passed out information, held classroom presentations and showed films outlining their concerns.

Francisca Cortez, a native of Mexico but a resident of Imokalee, where two of her family members work on the farms that supply McDonald's with tomatoes, says workers endure "sweatshop" conditions and are lucky to make $50 a day if they can pick two tons of tomatoes. Work isn't guaranteed every day, and workers - mainly Mexicans, Guatemalans and Haitians - receive no health benefits.

CIW is asking McDonald's to pay a penny more per pound of tomatoes picked by the Imokalee workers, a demand the restaurant chain hasn't acquiesced to yet.

Speaking through a translator, Brent Perdue, a representative of the Student/Farm Worker Alliance from Austin, Texas, Cortez describes the group's intentions as this:

"What we are asking�is for McDonald's to take responsibility and pay a fair wage for the tomatoes we pick," she said. "They know what we are asking. They say they don't have responsibility, but we know they have responsibility and aren't taking the correct route."

Cortez said CIW asked the same thing of restaurant chain Taco Bell in 2001. In 2005, the company agreed to the penny increase per pound after the group called for a boycott for four years.

Cortez said they aren't yet calling for a boycott of McDonald's; they are simply raising awareness of the issue among patrons. There are four McDonald's restaurants located in the Carbondale area alone, including one in the SIUC Student Center.

McDonald's USA spokesman Bill Whitman said the company is aware of CIW's concerns but contends its code of conduct for suppliers it does business with mandates certain employer requirements, such as no day laborers, access to health benefits and Social Security.

"So, if they are working with day laborers they are not working for McDonald's," he said.

Whitman said McDonald's only receives 1.5 percent of Florida's tomato supply, and the company's ability to impact the industry for employment reform is limited.

"Now, that's not to say we aren't doing anything with our suppliers to improve conditions of the field workers, who work so hard in those fields every day," Whitman said. "But McDonald's does not employ CIW members. We cannot pay people more money when they are not on our payroll."