PALM BEACH POST

March 9, 2005

Farmworkers win wage increase in fight against Yum!

Taco Bell will pay 1 cent more per pound of tomatoes.

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

It was the smallest of the small against the biggest of the big.

And the little guys won.

An organization of farmworkers from the small central Florida town of Immokalee Tuesday won its three-year fight for higher wages against Yum! Brands Inc., the megafirm that operates Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver's and A&W restaurants.

Yum! announced that Taco Bell will soon start to pay 1 cent more for each pound of tomatoes that workers pick. The move would affect about 1,000 Florida workers.

That means those workers, who now make 40-45 cents for each 32-pound bucket they harvest, will earn at least 72 cents for that quantity — an increase of from 60 to 80 percent.

"Our members are some of the poorest people in this country, and this will make a great difference to their families," Lucas Benitez, a leader of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, said in a phone interview. "Systemic change to ensure human rights for farmworkers is long overdue."

In the past, the coalition had accused Taco Bell of demanding the lowest possible prices from its Florida suppliers, which kept wages low and working conditions poor. Tens of thousands of farmworkers labor in Florida harvests every year. As a group, they have the lowest standards of living in the state, including substandard housing and health care.

At a press conference at Yum! headquarters in Louisville, Ky., Benitez announced that his group was ending its three-year boycott of Taco Bell restaurants, a key tactic in the fight against the company. Another strategy that had worked well was to attract powerful and influential friends to the cause.

Among the backers of the boycott were the AFL-CIO, the National Council of Churches, the United Methodist Church and the U.S. Presbyterian Church and such celebrities as Susan Sarandon, Martin Sheen and Bonnie Raitt.

"It's great to hear this," Ethel Kennedy, widow of Sen. Robert Kennedy and an outspoken supporter of the farmworkers, said from her Palm Beach home. "It gives them a much-needed boost, and it's good to see Taco Bell taking a leadership role in corporate responsibility."

After knocking heads with the farmworkers group for several years, Taco Bell President Emil Brolick said the company would now cooperate with the coalition on various fronts, starting with the wage increase. He said his firm will soon start sending its growers in Florida the penny per pound that is to be passed on directly to the pickers.

"We recognize that Florida tomato workers do not enjoy the same rights and conditions as employees in other industries, and there is a need for reform," Brolick said in a press release issued jointly with the coalition. "We hope others in the restaurant industry and supermarket retail trade will follow our leadership."

Jonathan Blum, senior vice president of Yum! Brands, said the firm also would be pressing the growers it contracts with in Florida to improve work conditions for farmworkers.

"We have already added language to our Supplier Code of Conduct to ensure that indentured servitude by suppliers is strictly forbidden, and we will require strict compliance with all existing laws," Blum said. "Finally, we pledge to aid in efforts at the state level to seek new laws that better protect all Florida tomato farmworkers."

In 2004, Taco Bell purchased about 10 million pounds of Florida tomatoes, according to the company.

With 6,500 restaurants nationwide that serve some 35 million consumers each week, Yum! has more locales than any other restaurant company in the world. In 2004, it had revenues of $9.01 billion. Only McDonald's restaurants take in more money.

Asked if other restaurant chains or supermarkets might face boycotts if they don't follow the Yum! lead, Benitez said nothing was currently planned.

"But anything is possible," he said.