The Florida tomato pickers of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) rolled into Chicago in blustery April, ready to stand before McDonald’s corporate headquarters and press their demands that the fast-food behemoth take responsibility for the miserable way its tomatoes are farmed. It proved unnecessary. As more than 1,000 tomato pickers and their allies wound their way to Chicago, McDonald’s… return to article
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Reader Comments (3)Page 1 of 1 pagesOK.........These tactics work, and have increased the incomes of some of the Florida tomato pickers. Apparently the plan is to go from corporate target to target until all of the workers gain the increased incomes. Other fast food chains, Walmart, Whole Foods........why not Budweiser and Ford Motors? In the meantime, there are some important issues that this campaign ignores.
These tomato pickers earn about $7.50 per hour. In the 5-6 month picking season they earn $10,000 to $12,000. That’s about it for the year. It seems rare that any spouses are employed. This partial employment does not make for a living wage. I do not understand how this group of migrant farm workers have come to be unmigrant, and how that is supposed to work for them. The whole concept of migrant farm worker is to follow the work to where the work is. They have dropped out of the system. How did this come to be. Now here are Taco Bell and McDonalds agreeing to pay the workers extra to make up for the 6 months that they do not work. I realize that it is cheaper for these restaurant chains to do this than to suffer boycotts, etc., but it just fails to seem appropriate to me.
Plus, if I worked at McDonalds, what am I going to face if I ask for a raise? Will they say, “Well, we did have a little extra money, but we gave it to the Florida tomato pickers........I guess you’re out of luck.” It is their own workers that McDonalds should be tending to, not those of a tomato farm labor contractor.
If McDonalds is bound to pursue this type of subsidization, where next? Maybe the guys working on the wheat harvest? Cowboys? Feedlot workers? Chicken pluckers? Cucumber pickers? Onion pickers? Mustard seed harvesters? Egg gatherers? Potato diggers? etc. etc.
Eventually McDonalds will begin to feel that this is no longer altruism......it’s extortion.
Posted by JPetersmith on May 15, 2007 at 9:32 PM JPetersmith - come on! you think McDonald’s shouldn’t be responsible for its supply chain? it’s extortion? i think it’s extortion that the CEO milks out over a million dollars a year plus benefits, while he can force those truly responsible for the day to day functioning of the company to live on peanuts. the operation of McDonald’s business affects all of those sections of the economy you listed and more. if it doesnt have the ability to properly treat and compensate all its workers, and account for all its inputs, then it should exist in the way that it does.
Posted by pogos on May 16, 2007 at 1:12 PM If McDonalds CEO makes only a million per year, that’s less than a lot of CEO’s make, but is still a huge pot of money. I’ve heard the recommendation that CEO compensations be tied to a multiple(don’t remember how much a multiple) of the average salary of all corporate employees. That sounds OK with me. But whatever it is, if it is inappropriately high, then yes, I would say that the excess management moneys would be better distributed to the rank and file employees.
But still, yes, I do not think that, in the absense of child labor, or slave labor, McDonalds has any real responsibility for the business operations of its suppliers. Sure it’s extortion, but so are the undertones of a lot of labor/management power struggles. But here the basic confrontation seems so very far off kilter. I think that the main thing is that, as this article states, they tried to take on the tomato growers and the labor contractors and “didn’t get anywhere”. Did you read that they later tried a co-op labor service in the melon harvest, which yielded a doubling of earnings for the laborers? Doesn’t this suggest that the labor contractors were taking half of the money obtained from the growers. I gather that if a contractor supplies 100 workers in the harvest, that he would make about $60 per day per worker or a cool $6,000 per day. I really think that it’s the tomato labor contractor that needs to be kicked to the curb, not the McDonalds CEO. (I am assuming that the cut for tomato labor contractors would be about the same as for melon harvest labor contractors.) The tomato growers seem to be paying probably fair and adequate money for the harvest of their crops.
So, I guess that I agree that McDonalds should “properly treat and compensate all its workers”, but don’t agree that it should “account for all its inputs”.
Posted by JPetersmith on May 16, 2007 at 4:43 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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