U.S. Senate panel to hear testimony about tomato workers

By MAURA POSSLEY

Congressional leaders today will hear from Florida's farmworker and grower community on the working conditions faced by tomato workers across the state.

Some expected to testify before a U.S. Senate committee say Florida farmworkers suffer abuse and live in conditions of slavery.

But others say those allegations are false and defamatory, all part of an effort to wring better wages out of growers.

"We know that there is slavery and sweatshops transpiring in Florida's fields," said Jordan Buckley, from the office of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. "Hopefully, the workers will be treated with dignity."

Testifying before the committee chaired by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., will be Lucas Benitez, coalition cofounder; Charlie Frost, Collier County detective; Eric Schlosser, an California investigative reporter; Mary Bauer, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Immigrant Justice Project; Reggie Brown, Florida Tomato Growers Exchange executive vice president; and Roy Reyna, an Immokalee farm manager.

At the heart of the issue is the coalition's campaign for fast food giants to pay an extra penny per pound of tomatoes. The money then goes to the workers who picked the fruit, according to the coalition.

McDonald's Corp. and YUM! Brands Inc. have signed an agreement, and the coalition is now targeting Burger King.

But Brown's exchange has refused to participate, saying its members don't believe it is legally possible to identify which workers picked the tomatoes bought by fast food companies and then pass on the additional pennies.

The exchange has also come out in force against what the coalition has described as slavery conditions for workers.

"Each claim raised - housing, wages, working conditions, and slavery - are addressed by local, state and federal laws," according to a copy of Brown's planned testimony. "Charges that tomato growers have enslaved workers are false and defamatory."

More than 30,000 people work in Florida's tomato fields, it said, and workers earned between $10.50 to $14.86 per hour during the last growing season.

But the coalition contends workers earn far less, 40 to 45 cents per 32-pound bucket.

Its hope is that by bending the ears of national political leaders, the organization's cause is heard and workers conditions will be acknowledged, said Buckley, involved with the coalition through Interfaith Action of Southwest Florida.

"Having those in the halls of power in D.C. take an interest and commit themselves to uncovering why slavery and exploitation continues to thrive can only benefit the movement to end those abuses," he said.