Burger King's purchasing practices

cornnifer

This from an online newsletter i subscribe to:





Farm workers who pick tomatoes for Burger King's sandwiches earn 40 to 50 cents for every 32-pound bucket of tomatoes they pick, a rate that has not risen significantly in nearly 30 years. Workers who toil from dawn to dusk must pick two tons of tomatoes to earn $50 in one day.

Worse yet, modern-day slavery has reemerged in Florida's fields; since 1997, the U.S. Department of Justice has prosecuted five slavery rings, freeing more than 1,000 workers. As a major buyer of Florida tomatoes, Burger King's purchasing practices place downward pressure on farm worker wages and put corporate profits before human dignity.

Click here to send a message to Burger King: "Farm workers deserve fair wages!"

Last year, Sojourners supporters like you sent over 25,000 letters in support of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers' (CIW) campaign to urge McDonald's to do right by Florida farm workers.

Together, we helped to win an important victory, as McDonald's recently committed to work with the CIW to improve wages and enforce a code of conduct for conditions in the fields. And YUM! Brands, corporate parent to such chains as Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut, has made the same commitment.

But Burger King -- the second-largest hamburger chain in the world -- has so far refused to work with farm workers and heed the call of the faith community to improve wages and working conditions for those who pick their tomatoes.

Burger King is able to pool the buying power of thousands of restaurants to extract the lowest possible tomato prices from its suppliers. But these artificially cheap tomatoes come at a high cost for farm workers.

Tell Burger King to clean up its act and ensure fair wages for farm workers.

As people of faith, we believe all workers have the right to a safe and productive work environment, including a wage that allows them to support their families with dignity:

"Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts." (James 5:4)

Send a letter to Burger King CEO John Chidsey to call on Burger King to work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to ensure fair wages and human rights for farm workers in its tomato supply chain:



Thank you for taking action in solidarity with Florida farm workers.

Blessings,

Yonce, Amy, Bob, Kim, and the rest of the team at Sojourners/Call to Renewal

P.S. Can you forward this message

edit: link removed because of personal info contained.

polaris

but but ... is my value combo gonna go up now?

edgarcamp

polaris wrote:

but but ... is my value combo gonna go up now?

Yes it will!

El_Kabong

blah, all the fast food chains suck

but this doesn't surprise me...didn't some ppl protest mcdonalds for something similar a little while ago? smithfield, too, forgot what that strike was over...anyway they can make a buck...

does anyone remember after 9/11 burger king had 'the all american burger' and the ad said it had 'freshly tossed lettuce'? wtf is 'freshly tossed lettuce'?? wow, i bet wendys doesn't toss their lettuce

sponger

cornnifer wrote:

As people of faith, we believe all workers have the right to a safe and productive work environment, including a wage that allows them to support their families with dignity:

I am not a person of faith. I must not give a shit about slavery then. ah well.

Specifics

just as everyone was feeling fuzzy and warm pointing the finger at China. you ruined it man.

my2hands

just another good reason i gave up all fast food. permanently.

cornnifer

sponger wrote:

I am not a person of faith. I must not give a shit about slavery then. ah well.

In no way does it imply that. Sojourners is a left leaning Christian organization. The text i posted is from an e-mail newsletter i subscribe to. As a Christian organization, it is assumed that most subscribers probably are "people of faith". That doesn't mean the information cannot and should not be shared with non-christians. It doesn't imply that non-Christians are not concerned with such issues.

sponger

cornnifer wrote:

In no way does it imply that. Sojourners is a left leaning Christian organization. The text i posted is from an e-mail newsletter i subscribe to. As a Christian organization, it is assumed that most subscribers probably are "people of faith". That doesn't mean the information cannot and should not be shared with non-christians. It doesn't imply that non-Christians are not concerned with such issues.

So if I said, "As atheists, we must be concerned about the immoralities of using slave labor," you wouldn't interpret that as an attempt to associate moral behavior with atheism? It's an inherently exclusionary statement.

hippiemom

sponger wrote:

So if I said, "As atheists, we must be concerned about the immoralities of using slave labor," you wouldn't interpret that as an attempt to associate moral behavior with atheism? It's an inherently exclusionary statement.

Oh, for crying out loud .... cornnifer's doing a good thing here, quit nitpicking! And that's coming from an atheist.

Eliot Rosewater

Instead of writing the BK CEO a letter I'm just gonna stop eating there. I've probably only eaten there once in the last 5+ years anyway.

hippiemom

don't gimme no wrote:

Instead of writing the BK CEO a letter I'm just gonna stop eating there. I've probably only eaten there once in the last 5+ years anyway.

Better yet, write the letter and tell him why you're not eating there .... and leave out the part about only eating there once every five years

cornnifer

sponger wrote:

So if I said, "As atheists, we must be concerned about the immoralities of using slave labor," you wouldn't interpret that as an attempt to associate moral behavior with atheism? It's an inherently exclusionary statement.

If YOU said it, well, maybe. But if it were an atheist newsletter sent to its subscribers, and in nowhere was it stated that people of faith were in no way concerned with the such immoralities, i wouldn't interpret it as such at all.

SPEEDY MCCREADY

im sorry ....

but i gotta be honest.....

i dont give a rats ass how much the tomato pickers for burger king get paid....

and i will never give a rats ass how much they get paid.....

gue_barium

SPEEDY MCCREADY wrote:

im sorry ....

but i gotta be honest.....

i dont give a rats ass how much the tomato pickers for burger king get paid....

and i will never give a rats ass how much they get paid.....

No thoughts on modern day slavery other than, "I don't care"?

My thought is this is what libertarianism does. Libertarianism is alive and well, but most people here call it capitalism.

jeffbr

gue_barium wrote:

No thoughts on modern day slavery other than, "I don't care"?

I am libertarian and am totally opposed to slavery. I'm against coersion and force. But maybe when you say slavery you're talking about something else. What is your definition of slavery?

gue_barium

jeffbr wrote:

I am libertarian and am totally opposed to slavery. I'm against coersion and force. But maybe when you say slavery you're talking about something else. What is your definition of slavery?

This isn't about me, or what I believe, this is about those farm workers in America who are still being paid deplorable wages and living in deplorable living conditions. I would call it a slave condition. Why does it get to this situation in this day in age to begin with? Is it because those business owners in Florida (and Burger King) believe it to be their liberty to treat people in such a way?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58505-2005Feb27_2.html

Cosmo

That Burger King big head guy creeps me out. That's why I don't eat at Burger King.
...
Oh, yeah... that and I don't like their food.

stuckinline

El_Kabong wrote:

blah, all the fast food chains suck

but this doesn't surprise me...didn't some ppl protest mcdonalds for something similar a little while ago? smithfield, too, forgot what that strike was over...anyway they can make a buck...

does anyone remember after 9/11 burger king had 'the all american burger' and the ad said it had 'freshly tossed lettuce'? wtf is 'freshly tossed lettuce'?? wow, i bet wendys doesn't toss their lettuce[/quote


in 2005, there was a boycott against taco bell and yum foods:
http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/sweatshops/2902.html

Tomato Worker Boycott Ends After Taco Bell Deal

Reuters
March 08, 2005
By Michael Peltier

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Reuters) - Florida farm workers ended a three-year boycott of fast food chain Taco Bell on Tuesday after the company agreed to force its suppliers to pay a penny-per-pound surcharge on Florida tomatoes.
Taco Bell owner Yum! Brands Inc. said it had also agreed to work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a South Florida-based workers rights organization, to improve basic conditions and wages in the state's tomato industry.

Coalition representatives hailed the company's decision as a significant step in their quest to improve the lives of thousands of farm workers, many of whom earn less than $7,500 a year.

"This is an important victory for farm workers, one that establishes a new standard of social responsibility for the fast-food industry ...," said Lucas Benitez, a leader of the coalition, which has led a campaign of hunger strikes and nationwide protests against Taco Bell.

Meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, company officials pledged to help farm worker advocates gain similar concessions from others in the fast food industry.

"With this agreement, we will be the first in our industry to directly help improve farm workers' wages," Taco Bell President Emil Brolick said in a statement.

"And we pledge to make this commitment real by buying only from Florida growers who pass this penny-per-pound payment entirely on to the farm workers."

Based in Irvine, California, Taco Bell operates more than 6,500 restaurants in the United States. Taco Bell purchased 10 million pounds of Florida grown tomatoes, just under 1 percent of the state crop, last year.

The company had long argued it had no way to influence what its suppliers paid their workers.

The agreement came three years after farm worker advocates first called for a national boycott.

Around 21 U.S. universities ended franchise agreements with the company as part of the "Boot the Bell" campaign.

Coalition leaders on Tuesday called on supporters, including the National Council of Churches and various human rights groups, to also end their boycotts.

"I am pleased Taco Bell has taken a leadership role to help reform working conditions for Florida farm workers and has committed to use its power to effect positive human rights change," said former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, whose Carter Center foundation helped broker the agreement.

"I now call on others in the industry to follow Taco Bell's lead."