The Buddhist Peace Fellowship commends the Coalition for Immokalee Workers (CIW) and YUM Brands/Taco Bell on their breakthrough agreement in March of 2005. This agreement addresses the dire conditions farm workers endure. It offers real opportunity for changing the dismal status quo in fields throughout the country. We hope that McDonald’s follows in the footsteps of Yum Brands/Taco Bell to correct decades of human rights abuses and sub-poverty wages affecting farm workers in Florida and throughout the United States.

Recently, McDonald’s Corporation announced that they have aligned themselves with a new initiative, the Socially Accountable Farm Employers (SAFE). The SAFE program can in no way be construed as an efficient and reliable program to address the unfair labor practices and stagnant wages faced by farm workers. In fact, there are currently only two entities involved in this initiative, the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, a staunchly anti-worker group, and the Redlands Christian Migrant Association (RCMA), a childcare agency that receives funding from the growers association. By aligning themselves with the SAFE program, McDonald’s is choosing a partnership that excludes the very people who are being abused by the system. In sidestepping the CIW, McDonald’s is skirting the very issues that need to be addressed. We sincerely hope McDonald’s officials re-examine this position.

We are dismayed when we read about the unjust situation farm workers face on a daily basis. We are certain that any well-informed individual, including McDonald’s’ employees, corporate executives, and board members are equally appalled by the extreme conditions farm workers in their supply chain endure. McDonald’s and other multi-national corporations demand the lowest possible price for their high volume of tomatoes, which pressures their suppliers to cut costs in order to boost profitability. But these cost cutting measures inevitably impact those at the very bottom of the corporate ladder. Unjust and unsafe conditions that currently exist can be eliminated if McDonald’s works with the CIW to ensure its suppliers change course and treat farm workers with the dignity everyone deserves. We ask that McDonald’s join with the CIW to implement and extend the principles of social responsibility established in the Yum Brands/CIW agreement to ensure McDonald’s tomato suppliers provide farm workers the ability to feed their own families and to live with dignity and respect.

We urge McDonald’s to work together with the CIW to follow the YUM Brands! Model, which is already providing benefits to farm workers in Florida. McDonald’s recent decision to offer Fair Trade coffee in 650 restaurants makes it seem as if it wants to do the right thing with regards to farm workers. But until McDonald’s takes similar action in the tomato industry- including paying an increased price for tomatoes so that tomato pickers can earn an improved wage- it is unclear if McDonald’s hopes to be on the forefront of a changing relationship with farm workers or merely wants to burnish its reputation as a socially responsible company.

The first two paragraphs of McDonald’s “Code of Conduct for Supplier’s” reads (italics are added):

“McDonald’s believes that all employees deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. In each and every aspect of the employment relationship, employers need to act towards their employees as they would themselves want to be treated. The 100% satisfaction of our internal customers – our employees – is essential to the 100% satisfaction of our external customers…. As a result, McDonald’s has established a well-respected record and reputation for business honesty and integrity. These principles apply globally, form the basis for McDonald’s own ethical business practices, and are cornerstones to McDonald’s success.

McDonald’s strongly believes that those suppliers who are approved to do business with the McDonald’s System should follow the same philosophy, and, in the best interest of the System, McDonald’s will refuse to approve or do business with those who do not uphold, in action as well as words, the same principles.”

McDonald’s is not living up to its promise to treat farm workers “as the employers themselves want to be treated”. What employer would choose to walk to a bus stop each morning before sunrise (6 or 7 days a week) and wait to see if they would be “chosen” to work that day? What employer would work 14-hour days without overtime pay or any additional benefits? What employer would choose to fill 32 pound buckets of tomatoes to earn wages that have remained stagnant for better than 25 years at 40-45 cents per bucket? What employer would pick, fill, and haul 125 of these buckets, with little or no rest, in order to earn $50.00 at the end of the day? What employer would endure such intolerable conditions? We believe it is safe to say not one employer, not one McDonald’s’ executive, not one McDonald’s’ board member would subject themselves to these hardships. And neither should tomato pickers be subjected to these conditions.

The Yum Brands agreement called for a penny a pound increase in wages, which almost doubles the tomato bucket piece rate farm workers receive, and it is a fair assumption that McDonald’s could do even better than this. The agreement also puts in place a mechanism for addressing grievances. It is the first enforceable Code of Conduct for agricultural suppliers in the fast-food industry (and it includes the CIW, a worker-based organization, as part of the investigative body for monitoring worker complaints).

From a Buddhist perspective, we are not separate from the suffering of another human being. This is very similar to the truth expressed by Jesus: “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers that you do unto me.” This spiritual truth becomes clear in the example of our relationship to the farm worker, for we eat the very fruit of his or her suffering. The tomato we eat is imbued with the sweat and tears of the laborer who picks it from the vine. The source of our nutrition comes at a price that few of us are willing to consider. Once we become aware of the circumstances, we must act. We call on McDonald’s to immediately work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to address the sub-poverty wages and working conditions of farm workers in its tomato supply chain. If McDonald’s does this, it will truly be regarded as a corporation that lives up to its social responsibility and it will improve the lives of the workers whose labor it depends upon.

Johnny Barber
Buddhist Peace Fellowship- Florida

Maia Duerr
Executive Director
Buddhist Peace Fellowship