ASSOCIATED PRESSApril 2, 2006 Farmworkers demonstrate to pressure McDonald's for higher wages By NATHANIEL HERNANDEZ
Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO -- Police officers kept the drive-thru at McDonald's Corp.'s flagship restaurant open Saturday as several hundred supporters of a farmworker advocacy group demanded better wages for the people who pick the tomatoes used by the fast-food giant.
But one of the company's suppliers says the demonstrators are misrepresenting the situation.
Members of the Florida-based Coalition of Immokalee Workers, which represents the largely Hispanic work force that picks tomatoes for growers who supply produce for McDonald's sandwiches and salads, organized the rally at a busy downtown intersection.
Demonstrators pounded on drums and held signs that read 'I'm Not Lovin' It' -- a play on McDonald's advertising slogan -- as speakers in yellow T-shirts painted a bleak picture of supposedly inhumane working conditions.
Rolando Sales, 26, said workers who must fill 125 buckets to make $50 a day are being exploited so that McDonald's can purchase tomatoes at a low price.
"We put food on the table for families all over this country," Sales said in Spanish. "We are asking McDonald's to take some responsibility as a corporation."
The coalition is urging consumers to pressure Oak Brook, Ill.-based McDonald's Corp. to support a campaign to boost wages for more than 3,000 Florida pickers. They're proposing a penny per pound increase in pay.
A McDonald's spokeswoman said Saturday the company is aware of issues raised during the rally and has already contracted an independent research group to study the farmworkers' conditions and the potential impact of their proposal.
McDonald's suppliers have told the company they will implement the penny per pound increase if the study concludes wages and benefits are currently inadequate, spokeswoman Lisa Howard said.
"They will make it up, retroactive to the beginning of the current growing season," Howard said.
The group reached a similar agreement with Taco Bell's parent company, Louisville-based Yum Brands Inc., last year.
Jay Taylor, a McDonald's supplier who owns farms in Immokalee and other parts of Florida that employ anywhere between 700 and 1000 workers a day, called the coalition's description of the working conditions "disingenuous" and said the group has declined repeated invitations to discuss the problem.
"While they've brought forth a subject that myself and others felt needed to be dealt with for a long time, it's a shame that they don't want to engage in any other process but their own," he said.
Taylor is leading a group of farmers who are working to implement more socially responsible practices. He said the coalition's focus on the penny per pound pay increase is doing its members a disservice.
"That only addresses one narrow issue. What difference does it make if you get that penny per pound and the crew leader keeps it," he said. "You've got to go further than that."
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