US: Taco Bell, farm workers reach agreement

Taco
Bell will pay an extra penny for each pound of tomatoes it buys under
an agreement with a group of farm workers that had been protesting the
fast food chain for three years.

The agreement, announced Tuesday, also brings to an end the periodic
protests by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a group of mostly
Latino laborers from the tomato-growing region around Immokalee, Fla.

The coalition ran a three-year campaign called the "Taco Bell Truth
Tour," asking people to stay away from Taco Bell and restaurants run by
its Louisville-based parent, Yum! Brands Inc., until the company
pressured tomato growers to provide better wages and living conditions
for farm workers.

"Today, we are ending our boycott of Taco Bell," said Lucas Benetiz, co-director of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

Along with Taco Bell, Yum restaurants include KFC, Pizza Hut, Long
John Silver's and A&W All-American Food Restaurants. Yum spokesman
Jonathan Blum said the agreement reached with the farm workers does not
affect any Yum restaurant besides Taco Bell.

Blum said Pizza Hut does not buy Florida tomatoes for its sauce and
the other brands do not use enough tomatoes to have an impact on the
market.

Taco Bell buys about 10 million pounds of Florida tomatoes a year,
Blum said. The extra penny paid per pound - about $100,000 annually -
will be funneled to the farm workers through a small group of
suppliers, Blum said. Yum will eat the cost, Blum said.

"The consumer won't be affected by this," Blum said.

The average price per pound at the farm level for the 2003-04 season
was approximately 32 cents per pound or about $8.04 per 25-lb. package,
according to the Florida Tomato Committee, a marketing group based in
Maitland, Fla.

Benetiz, speaking through interpreter Melody Gonzalez, said farm
workers earn about $7,500 a year, without health insurance or paid
vacations. The extra penny added per pound picked will almost double
the yearly salaries of the roughly 1,000 farm workers employed by Taco
Bell suppliers, Benetiz said.

"It would mean almost reaching the poverty level," Benetiz said.

The Florida Tomato Committee said tomato farmers hired about 33,000
workers during the last season, which ran from October 2003 through
June 2004.

The agreement between Taco Bell and the workers also includes a code
of conduct for the restaurant chain's suppliers. The code bans
indentured labor, in which workers are brought to Florida and must work
off the debt and open themselves to periodic, unannounced inspections.

"We have no tolerance for that," Blum said.

The agreement also sets up a process for workers to file complaints
about their pay or treatment that would be jointly investigated by the
coalition and Yum. Yum also agreed to help the coalition set up a
strategy to lobby the Florida Legislature for laws requiring better
working conditions.

Yum had long resisted a call for the penny-per-pound increase,
saying it was only one buyer of Florida tomatoes and that it would only
do so if the rest of the industry could be induced to pay more. Yum had
also sought an end to the protests.

Blum said Yum agreed to the deal Tuesday because the tomato
suppliers, who he declined to identify, agreed to pass along the extra
penny per pound to the farm workers.

"We, fortunately, over the last year were able to get the major suppliers to do it," Blum said.

Blum and Benetiz said they hope the agreement will lead other
restaurants and supermarkets to work out a similar deal to help the
farm workers.

Benetiz said the farm workers are open to future protests and boycotts to pressure other tomato buyers into helping the workers.

"Anything is possible in this struggle," Benetiz said.

• 116 Human Rights
• 181 Food and Agriculture