“THE REAL RIGHTS TOUR”
March 26 – April 4, 2006
Major Rally April 1st, Chicago, IL
WHERE: From Immokalee to Chicago (home of McDonald’s) and points in between, including Louisville, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Ann Arbor, Madison, South Bend, and more!
WHO: You – and farmworkers from Immokalee. If you’d like to join us in Chicago or you live along the route, contact us to see how you can participate, at workers@ciw-online.org
WHAT: Farmworkers from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) and their allies will travel by caravan from Immokalee, FL, home of one of the largest farmworker communities in the country, to Chicago, IL, home of the world’s largest restaurant chain, McDonald’s.
On April 1st – the fifth anniversary of the launch of the successful Taco Bell Boycott – the caravan will be joined by supporters from throughout the region for a major rally in Chicago, where they will call on the fast-food giant McDonald’s to work with the CIW and help establish real labor rights for the workers who pick tomatoes for McDonald’s suppliers. Specifically, workers and their allies will be calling for:
- The right to a fair wage, after more than 25 years of sub-poverty wages and stagnant piece rates;
- The right for farmworkers to participate in the decisions that affect their lives, after decades of sweatshop conditions and humiliating labor relations;
- The right to a real code of conduct based on modern labor standards, after McDonald’s and its suppliers unilaterally imposed a hollow code of conduct comprised of minimal labor standards and suspect monitoring
The Taco Bell boycott victory on March 8th, 2005, established important new precedents for corporate social responsibility in the fast-food industry. But since that time, McDonald’s has taken a path that threatens to undercut the wage gains won by farmworkers in the Taco Bell Boycott and to push workers back away from the table where decisions are made that affect their lives.
McDonald’s clearly knows how to do better. The fast-food giant recently announced an agreement to purchase only fair-trade coffee for over 650 of its restaurants, paying a reasonable premium over market price so that the workers who pick their coffee can receive a fair wage and enjoy humane labor conditions. Yet McDonald’s refuses to pay even a penny more per pound for its tomatoes so that Florida farmworkers can earn a better wage. Likewise, McDonald’s requires its toy suppliers in China to respect internationally recognized labor rights, including the right to overtime pay and the right to organize, but refuses to require its tomato suppliers in Florida to respect those same fundamental rights.
In the face of McDonald’s steadfast refusal to treat farmworkers with respect, demand truly humane labor standards of its suppliers, and pay a fairer price for tomatoes in order to address farmworker poverty – poverty which has helped pad McDonald’s profits for more than 50 years – the CIW is traveling to McDonald’s backyard with a clear message: Nothing less than real rights will do!
BACKGROUND: After a four-year national boycott of the fast-food chain Taco Bell, the CIW and Yum Brands forged an agreement that established several critical precedents for corporate supply chain accountability in the food industry. As a result of that agreement, Taco Bell is now directly contributing to an increase in tomato pickers’ wages, an increase that would nearly double farmworkers’ wages were it to be extended across the tomato industry. The Taco Bell agreement established the first code of conduct for Florida agricultural suppliers that guarantees a meaningful role for farmworkers in the protection of their own rights. The agreement also set new rules for supply chain transparency, allowing workers to track Taco Bell’s tomato purchases and so ensure true accountability.
During the boycott, a broad range of student, religious, labor and community organizations joined with the CIW in a growing alliance for “not just fast, but fair food.” With these allies by its side, the CIW has called on McDonald’s to follow Taco Bell’s lead in recognizing its responsibility for labor abuses in its supply chain and taking meaningful steps to address those abuses.
Farmworkers continue to be some of the most exploited and impoverished workers in the US. Florida’s tomato pickers earn 40-50 cents for each 32lb bucket of tomatoes they pick. At that rate – a rate that has remained virtually unchanged since 1978 – workers have to pick more than two tons of tomatoes just to earn minimum wage. They receive no overtime pay and no benefits, and have no right to organize in order to improve these conditions.
As a major buyer of Florida’s tomatoes, McDonald’s benefits from farmworker exploitation in the form of cheap produce, and actually contributes to that exploitation by leveraging its enormous purchasing power to demand the lowest possible price for the tomatoes it buys. In agriculture, this translates directly into a downward pressure on wages and working conditions for farmworkers.
McDonald’s purchasing power also provides the fast-food giant with the opportunity to play a meaningful role in correcting this human rights crisis. However, rather than follow Yum Brands’ lead and work with the CIW and its suppliers in a genuine partnership for social responsibility, McDonald’s has taken a path calculated both to undercut the wage gains won by farmworkers in the Taco Bell Boycott and push workers back away from the table at which decisions are made that affect their lives.
In the face of mounting concern over human rights abuses in its supply chain, McDonald’s chose to work exclusively with the leading lobbying group for Florida growers, the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association, to develop a minimal set of supplier guidelines dubbed “Socially Accountable Farm Employers,” or SAFE. Designed more to address McDonald’s perceived public relations crisis than the real human rights crisis in the fields, SAFE totally sidesteps calls to improve farmworker wages and to respect farmworkers’ fundamental labor rights.
McDonald’s clearly knows how to do better. The fast-food giant recently announced an agreement to purchase only fair-trade coffee for over 650 of its restaurants, paying a reasonable premium over market price so that the workers who pick their coffee can receive a fair wage and enjoy humane labor conditions. Yet McDonald’s refuses to pay even a penny more per pound for its tomatoes so that Florida farmworkers can earn a better wage. Likewise, McDonald’s requires its toy suppliers in China to respect internationally recognized labor rights, including the right to overtime pay and the right to organize, but refuses to require its tomato suppliers in Florida to respect those same fundamental rights.
The “Real Rights Tour,” the fifth such tour since the CIW’s Fair Food Campaign began in 2001, will counter McDonald’s public relations campaign with a truth campaign. Successful corporations must respond to the demands of consumers. Whether gains for farmworkers are advanced or turned back lies in our hands. So join the CIW in speaking truth to McDonald’s power and achieving real rights for Florida farmworkers.