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07226 April 18, 2007
Pause to praise
Immokalee workers celebrate McDonald's victory, Burger King next
by Toya Richards Hill
GLEN ELLYN, IL - Tell the average worker they're getting a penny raise and they'll laugh in your face.
After all, pennies are the useless coins passersby leave on the ground - the copper effortlessly thrown into give-a-penny, take-a-penny trays at the store checkout.
Flavia Garcia won't scoff, though.
A penny per pound more for the fresh-from-the-vine tomatoes she picks for hours on end in Florida fields directly equals more food on her family's table.
"Meat is expensive," said the farmworker from Immokalee, FL, who has spent the last 15 years as a migrant laborer trudging throughout the United States. Now, "We'll be able to buy more."
"It's not much," she said in Spanish through a translator. But "at least it's a victory."
Garcia and her cohorts, other members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) savored that victory on Friday, April 13 as they gathered in the Chicago area. The coalition is a community-based farmworker organization comprised largely of Latino, Haitian and Mayan Indian immigrants working in Florida.
Theirs was a triumph against the mother of all fast-food chains, Oak Brook, IL-based McDonald's Corp. Earlier that week the company agreed to guarantee a penny more per pound for workers harvesting tomatoes for McDonald's.
On average, tomato pickers earn 45 cents for every 32-pound bucket of tomatoes. A penny more per pound would take earnings to 77 cents a bucket.
"That's dramatic when you are at the absolute pit of the pay scale," said the Rev. Noelle Damico, associate for Fair Food and coordinator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s Campaign for Fair Food.
The hamburger giant also agreed to a stronger code of conduct based on the principle of worker participation, and a collaborative effort to develop third party monitoring of conditions in the fields and investigation of workers' abuse complaints.
The agreement happened just days before the culmination of the CIW's "McDonald's Truth Tour 2007: Behind the Golden Arches." The multi-city tour to expose the facts about farmworker exploitation via McDonald's was to end with a mass rally at McDonald's headquarters.
Yet the event, which welcomed busloads of supporters from all over the country, turned into a celebration instead, and the venue changed from Oak Brook to the College of DuPage in nearby Glen Ellyn.
The party continued the next day with a concert at Chicago's House of Blues, featuring Rage Against The Machine's Tom Morello and Zack de la Rocha playing together for the first time since the group split in 2000.
"It took McDonald's two years," Lucas Benitez, CIW co-founder and staff member, told the energy filled group of CIW members, students, religious supporters and others gathered at the College of DuPage. And it has been six years since we began this campaign for fair food, he said.
Along the way, "there were many people who thought we were crazy," Benitez said. "We have struggled."
Yet all of this is for "a better future * for us and our children," he told the crowd. To "be treated with dignity and respect."
The first steps toward that dignity and respect for the CIW were gained in 2005 when it reached a labor and fair-wage agreement with Yum! Brands Inc., which owns Taco Bell. The CIW's victory came after a nearly four-year-long boycott of Taco Bell, and included a penny more per pound in wages and 100 percent transparency in the supply chain, among other things.
"Friends, this is indeed a great day," said the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the PC(USA). "I am grateful today that we have a breakthrough with McDonald's."
The PC(USA) has been a leader in assisting the CIW with its fight.
"The Immokalee workers have helped us to open our eyes," said Linda Bryant Valentine, PC(USA) General Assembly Council executive director. "We thank you for all the tireless efforts."
Other leaders also praised the work of the CIW, including Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers; the Rev. Michael Livingston, president of the National Council of Churches (U.S.A.); and U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL).
And though all celebrated the victory, they also agreed much more still needs to be accomplished.
"Are we done with the campaign?" Benitez asked the crowd. "No!" he got back in a rowdy response.
The CIW has been actively working to get Miami-based Burger King Corp. to come to an agreement, but Burger King announced in February it would not pay a penny more per pound for its tomatoes.
"Today is not a moment to take a break," said Benitez. "But to take a quick sip of water" on the path to justice, he said.
"Do not ask us to buy your burgers and fries," Livingston said, referring to Burger King and other fast-food chains. "Do not offer us 99 cent meals.
"Get your pennies ready," he challenged Burger King. "Pay up!"
The challenge - and pressure - continued later that evening as cars and buses filled with participants converged on two area Burger King restaurants to protest. At one location, local police cautioned the ralliers to keep to the sidewalk and off restaurant property, but that didn't tone down the fervor.
"There is too much exploitation in the fields," said CIW member Orlando Sales. And it's due, in part, to low wages, he said.
Florida farmworkers have no right to overtime pay and tomato pickers make, on average, less than $10,000 a year, according to the CIW.
"We have the right to a just wage," Sales said. "We belong to the society."
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