"Stan de SD" <standesd_DIGA_NO_A_SPAM@covad.net> wrote in message
news:7e0b2$4432c46e$45035f0d$28556@msgid.meganewsservers.com...

"RŠ**Gnostic Archon" <xamazzz@no.mo.bush.net> wrote in message
news:e0uf3h$feml$1@news3.infoave.net...

Farm Workers Target McDonald's, Suppliers Over Wages
by Abid Aslam

WASHINGTON - Florida tomato pickers converged on McDonald's

flagship Chicago restaurant over the weekend to protest poor working
conditions and wages they say have stagnated for 30 years.

The farm hands, members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers,

a

penny-per-pound pay raise from their employers, growers based in and

around

Immokalee, Florida. And they want Oak Brook, Illinois-based McDonald's

finance the wage hike by paying more for their tomatoes. The company

it

is studying the issue.

Tomato pickers earn about $7,500 a year, the workers' coalition

said.

Sounds like the supply of unskilled labor exceeds the demand - and
liberals
still want open borders?

In contrast, McDonald's and other fast-food chains served up $135
billion in sales last year

And employed thousands of unskilled people who would have otherwise gone
without jobs.

JHR wrote:

"RŠ**Gnostic Archon" <xamazzz@no.mo.bush.net> wrote in message
news:e0uf3h$feml$1@news3.infoave.net...

Farm Workers Target McDonald's, Suppliers Over Wages
by Abid Aslam

WASHINGTON - Florida tomato pickers converged on McDonald's Corp.'s
flagship Chicago restaurant over the weekend to protest poor working
conditions and wages they say have stagnated for 30 years.

The farm hands, members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, want

penny-per-pound pay raise from their employers, growers based in and
around Immokalee, Florida. And they want Oak Brook, Illinois-based
McDonald's to finance the wage hike by paying more for their tomatoes.

company said it is studying the issue.

Tomato pickers earn about $7,500 a year, the workers' coalition

In contrast, McDonald's and other fast-food chains served up $135
billion in sales last year, according to industry group the National
Restaurant Association.

The sheer size of their market gives fast food companies

clout in dealing with suppliers and this, in turn, has made them juicy
targets for activism. Unlike these big-spending corporate customers, the
mostly migrant farm workers wield little power against their employers:
wealthy local farmers and privately held firms that make up the backbone
of Florida's strategic tomato industry.

Florida supplies some 90 percent of the nation's domestic fresh
tomatoes during winter and 45 percent of all U.S. tomato consumption,

business group the Florida Tomato Council. Immokalee is said to be among
the largest and poorest farming areas in America.

The coalition's 3,500-odd worker-members and their supporters from
religious and student organizations are targeting McDonald's after

a four-year campaign that last March succeeded in pressing Taco Bell
parent Yum! Brands Inc. to require its suppliers to pay the workers one
cent more per pound of tomatoes picked.

As a result, some workers picking tomatoes sold to Taco Bell have
seen their wages nearly double.

Other tomato pickers, however, continue to draw roughly the same

they earned in the mid-1970s: between 1.25 cents and 1.4 cents per

the coalition said. That amounts to roughly the minimum wage of $5.15

hour for mostly seasonal work.

To win the Taco Bell struggle, the Immokalee workers mobilized

support for a consumer boycott, hunger strike, and marches. They also
enlisted socially responsible investors who opened a new front by
submitting pro-farm worker proposals at annual meetings of Yum! Brands
shareholders.

This time around, the farm workers have not called for a boycott of
McDonald's because the firm, which takes pride in several corporate
philanthropy initiatives, has acknowledged the workers' situation and

said it will take steps to correct it if an independent study bears out
their position.

McDonald's already has embraced ''fair trade'' coffee, offering the
farm worker-friendly product at 600-plus restaurants in New England and
New York. The Florida tomato pickers want similar consideration,

spokesman Lucas Benitez was quoted as saying in news reports.

''Farm workers' inadequate wages will only truly be addressed when
McDonald's does for tomato pickers what it is now doing for coffee

in its supply chain, pay a fair price so that workers can earn a fair
wage,'' said Benitez.

Late last year, McDonald's became the first produce buyer to offer
active backing to the nascent Socially Accountable Farm Employers (SAFE)
<http://www.safeagemployer.org/>, a nonprofit organization aimed at
ensuring that growers treat their employees in keeping with law and
principles of fairness.

Growers launched the initiative after several of their colleagues
were charged or convicted in recent years with modern-day slavery,

by employment practices including poor wages, physical harassment and
violence at the workplace, forced labor, and child labor.

The workers' coalition and other critics have assailed SAFE's
credibility, saying employers designed a code of conduct for themselves
without consulting the workers they claimed to want to protect.

In particular, SAFE fails to address ''sub-poverty wages,'' said
Benitez.

Pressure on McDonald's, he added, is aimed at goading the company

follow Taco Bell's lead in demanding higher wages and employment

than those embraced by SAFE.

Under the terms of its agreement with the coalition, Yum! Brands
insists that suppliers pass on the higher price of tomatoes to their
workers. The company requires certification that suppliers abide by

laws and workplace regulations and also has said it would favor

that exceed legal requirements.

Florida growers have said even a penny-per-pound raise could

their competitiveness because it adds up when applied to millions of
tomatoes per year. Farm workers' supporters have countered that in the
Yum! Brands case, the cost of increased wages was incurred not by
agricultural employers but by Taco Bell, which now pays a higher price

the tomatoes.

Now as with the Taco Bell campaign, most organizations supporting

farm workers' struggle are assembled under the umbrella of the Alliance
for Fair Food <

alt.california,alt.politics.liberalism,alt.politics.bush,alt.fan.rush-limb

founded by the Presbyterian Church (USA), Robert F. Kennedy

Memorial Center for Human Rights, National Economic and Social Rights
Initiative, Student/Farmworker Alliance, and Interfaith Action.

Prominent individuals backing the alliance include former President
Jimmy Carter, Grammy Award-winner Bonnie Raitt, actor Jeff Bridges, Fast
Food Nation author Eric Schlosser, and Democratic Congressman John Lewis
of Georgia.

© 2006 OneWorld.net

###

http://www.ciw-online.org/

Now you pissed 'em off. Stupid assholes.

If all of the babyboomers would put their lazy-***** teenagers to work

time at Wendy's and McDonalds, etc... we wouldn't have this problem.

Instead of giving your spoiled brat teenagers 25.00-50.00 (or more) for
allowance every week, put them to work part time.
Hire an American teenager and send the illegals packing.

If these places paid decent wages, then more Americans would be working
there. You go pick lettuce for less than minimum wage and see how you
like it.