Human-rights champion visits Florida pickers
By Christine Evans, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
IMMOKALEE -- The former president of Ireland came to this speck-on-the-map farming town Monday
to speak out for the rights of poor tomato workers and to call upon the giant fast-food companyYum! Brands
to shell out a penny a pound more to help lift them out of the "grinding poverty" that engulfs them.
There she was, The Honorable Mary Robinson, in a smart red blazer and a stiff white shirt with the collar
buttoned, standing in front of a towering pyramid of 120 tomato buckets, each capable of holding 32 pounds.
The pyramid -- constructed by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a feisty and effective grass-roots
organization -- illustrated a point: If a worker picks enough to fill all 120 buckets -- nearly 2 tons -- in one day,
he might earn $ 48.
And a very good day it would be.
"This is a real human rights issue -- a fundamental human rights issue," said Robinson, who served five years
as the United Nations high commissioner for human rights. "I'm very aware that there are many people working
at Yum who would be proud of their company."
But, she continued, they might do well to visit this hardscrabble tomato patch in the dusty nowhere of
Southwest Florida, to "go out at four in the morning at the start of a working day" and see the horrendous
conditions workers must suffer. Then, she said, the company might reexamine its "purchasing strategy"
that relies on the cheapest of labor.
Yum has "great purchasing power and they use it to buy the cheapest products, and the burden of that is
falling on the workers," she said.
The focus on Yum! Brands, which owns Pizza Hut, KFC and Taco Bell, is not new. Three years ago,
the coalition launched a nationwide tour to publicize the low wages and difficult living conditions of Florida
tomato pickers, most of whom come from Mexico and other Latin countries to try to scratch out a meager living.
The coalition just wrapped up a two-week publicity tour that took 100 workers to protest at Yum headquarters
in Louisville, Ky., and Taco Bell headquarters in Irvine, Calif.
A Taco Bell spokeswoman said the company is not hard-hearted -- just the opposite -- but it can't make sure
a penny increase in price will be passed on to workers.
"We are paying on average 15 cents per pound more than we did three years ago" to tomato suppliers,
the spokeswoman said. "We've been telling them since day one that we have no way to make sure that gets back
to the worker. We can't force it. The employers of the farmworkers set their own wages."
Laura Germino of the coalition said Yum and the coalition could find a way to guarantee that the penny
would go to workers. She also confirmed a statement by Taco Bell that the two sides will meet on the issue
next month -- a new development in a long-running stalemate.
After the news conference, sponsored by the coalition and the poverty-fighting group Oxfam, Ireland's
former president set off on a walking tour down the town's dusty streets to peer into decrepit homes, interviewing
workers as she went. Carrying a large black handbag and wearing sensible walking shoes, Robinson looked a
bit like a census worker collecting data -- which, in a way, she was.
"How many of you live here?" she asked Tiberio Rodriguez, looking around the stuffy one-bedroom,
a sardine's shack.
"Five. All men." In the case of women tenants, somebody explained, "we hang a sheet to divide the
room, for privacy."
The former U.N. commissioner, a superb diplomat, called upon her sense of humor.
"I congratulate you! For five men, you keep it very tidy."
As she walked from barracks to trailer, a gaggle of reporters trailed. In this depressing landscape, her red blazer
was the brightest thing for miles. Workers stood in doorways to tell her how they came to chase the dream
-- and often failed to catch it.
Rodriguez told how he left six children and his wife behind in Honduras. Some days he makes $30 picking
tomatoes, some days more. But in one crucial way he is far poorer than before he came. In his absence,
his teenage son was shot to death in his poor Honduran town.
"This is not just my story," he said. "I have co-workers who travel for three or four days of picking and they
come back with just $70. It is a life of much misery."
Monday's media event came one week after Gov. Jeb Bush announced a series of reforms to improve
the lives of Florida's poor farmworkers. The proposal has been met with some skepticism, as long-time
observers question whether the measures will make a dent in solving the many problems.
Robinson said she was aware of Florida's recent history of prosecuting cases of modern-day slavery involving
migrant farmworkers. She also mentioned two new cases of alleged slavery detailed in The Palm Beach Post's
December series on modern-day slavery and said she would be watching with interest.