ORLANDO SENTINEL

May 24, 2008

Picking fight with Burger King: Migrants win

Jim Stratton, Sentinel Staff Writer

In the wake of an embarrassing corporate scandal, Burger King Corp. has ended a three-year battle with migrant workers in Southwest Florida and agreed to pay farmworkers a penny per pound more for tomatoes they pick.

The Miami-based fast-food chain and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers announced the deal Friday, with Burger King saying it will cost about $300,000 a year. The company will actually pay 1.5 cents more per pound, with the half-cent going to pay farmers' cost of compliance.

The agreement is a major victory for the coalition and puts new pressure on the Maitland-based Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, which represents the state's tomato farmers. Last year, the exchange refused to serve as a conduit for penny-a-pound settlements agreed to by McDonald's and Yum! Brands, which operates Taco Bell and KFC restaurants.

In April, Reggie Brown, the exchange's executive vice president, told a U.S. Senate committee the growers fear participation would open them up to lawsuits from workers.

"How can the fast-food chains [or any company that agrees to the extra penny] accurately identify how many tomatoes come from which producer and which specific employees picked them?" Brown asked. "It is not possible."


Threats of fines

To underscore its position, the exchange threatened to fine growers $100,000 if they participated. It has since backed off that threat.

As a result of the growers' decision, more than $110,000 that was supposed to have gone to migrant workers is being held in escrow by Yum! alone. The coalition estimates the additional penny is worth $25 to $60 a week to pickers, who they say make about $10,000 a year. The growers claim pickers make almost $25,000 a year.

Coalition spokeswoman Julia Perkins said the growers had distributed the extra money after the first settlement in 2005 but stopped last fall.

"The question is: 'Why?' " Perkins said. "The reasons they've raised are ridiculous."

Brown, the exchange vice president, was not available for comment Friday.

But Bob Spencer, a vice president with Palmetto-based West Coast Tomato, said growers were eager to find other ways to improve migrant workers' pay.

"If they can figure out a way to get the money to the people harvesting," he said, "the last thing we want to do is stand in the way of that."


Private-eye infiltration?

Florida produces almost half of the tomatoes eaten in the U.S. each year. The epicenter is Immokalee, a poor agricultural center southwest of Lake Okeechobee. During harvesting season -- roughly October to May -- more than 30,000 people work in the fields.

Burger King's announcement comes after two months of bad publicity.

In March, the coalition discovered that a woman who said she wanted to work with the Student/Farmworker Alliance -- a coalition partner -- was an unlicensed private investigator hired by Burger King.

Cara Schaffer, president of Diplomatic Tactical Services Inc., would not talk with the Sentinel about what she was hired to do, but Alliance officials said it appeared she was trying to infiltrate the group. Her company's Web site says it specializes in labor relations and offers "undercover operations" as one of its services.

About the same time, coalition officials began to notice blistering comments posted on Web sites that ran news stories about the farmworkers and their battle with Burger King. The posts, among other things, accused coalition organizers of pocketing the extra penny being paid by Yum! and McDonald's and portrayed the migrant workers as rubes.

When a similarly worded e-mail showed up at a Fort Myers newspaper, a reporter traced it back to a Burger King executive.

Initially, the company said it knew nothing of the posts, e-mails or undercover operation, but that quickly unraveled.

Burger King had, in fact, hired Schaffer's company -- though it insists it never told her to go undercover. The e-mails and online posts were the work of a Burger King vice president who posted under his daughter's screen name.

He and another executive were fired last week for participating "in unauthorized activity on public Web sites which did not reflect the company's views . . ."


'Burger With a Side of Spies'

The result was a controversy reported around the world: A New York Times op-ed story carried the headline "Burger With a Side of Spies." Friday's settlement was a clear effort by the company to make amends.

"We apologize for any negative statements about the CIW or its motives . . . and now realize those statements were wrong," Burger King CEO John Chidsey said. "Today we turn a new page in our relationship and begin a new chapter of real progress for Florida farmworkers."

Asked whether bad publicity had forced Burger King to relent, the coalition spokeswoman hedged.

"It might have been one of the reasons," Perkins said. "I think they just recognized it made more sense to work with us than against us."