February 24, 2004
Support the Immokalee Workers
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers are still fighting Taco Bell.
IMMOKALEE, Fla. — The early-morning fog and darkness were still two hours from lifting, but the parking lot of the La Mexicana grocery store was filled with 200 farmworkers waiting to be driven to vegetable fields so they could earn $20 to $60 for the day.Posted by Norwood at February 24, 2004 03:58 PMWhen the rundown school buses arrived, workers ran up, clenching their lunches wrapped in plastic bags. Drivers looked at each worker, deciding who could board in what is a daily ritual.
"You don't work fast enough," a driver said in Spanish, turning back one worker as he climbed the bus steps. Another worker outside the bus shouted urgently, "How many more?"
Poor working conditions, abysmal and expensive living quarters, and low pay will cause up to 100 farmworkers to board other buses tomorrow, but their destination won't be the vegetable fields and citrus groves of southwest Florida.
They will head for Kentucky and California in what has become an annual journey to protest Taco Bell, based in Irvine, Calif., and its corporate parent, Yum! Brands Inc. in Louisville.
Taco Bell is a major buyer of Florida tomatoes, and the farmworkers want the fast-food chain and Yum to pressure Florida tomato growers into improving wages and conditions in this remote agricultural spot about 120 miles northwest of Miami. The farmworkers began a boycott of Taco Bell more than two years ago.
"We earn so little here, and Taco Bell is a principal buyer of tomatoes," said Marcelino Hernandez, a former tomato picker in Immokalee, a three-stoplight town of 20,000 people where Spanish is the dominant language and roosters roam the streets.
Taco Bell recently rewrote its code of conduct for its suppliers after being pressured by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, an advocacy group for the farmworkers, which is leading the boycott.
The code now explicitly states that the company won't tolerate the use of forced labor or physical intimidation of workers. The change comes after five cases of farmworker slavery by independent labor contractors that have been prosecuted in South Florida in the past six years.
......The predominantly Mexican and Guatemalan farmworkers earn about 45 cents per 32-pound bucket of tomatoes picked, a wage they say hasn't changed in 20 years. They would like to see that raised to 75 cents to 80 cents per bucket, and they think Taco Bell could force its suppliers to increase their pay.
Vegetable and melon pickers in Collier County, where Immokalee is located, earned an average annual pay in 2002 of $13,287, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Farmworkers aren't paid while they are driven by buses to fields as far as 150 miles away to pick tomatoes, peppers and other winter vegetables. Sometimes they are taken to the fields in the back of closed cargo trucks for dark, airless rides that can last several hours on benches.
......Ray Gilmer, a spokesman for the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association, which represents Florida tomato growers, said that the boycott was misguided because "Taco Bell doesn't know where its tomatoes come from."
......The farmworker advocates say the poor pay creates an economy in which the farmworkers are taken advantage of at every turn. Because of the low pay — and because many are undocumented workers and can't obtain drivers' licenses — few farmworkers have cars and must live within several blocks of downtown Immokalee so that they can walk to the La Mexicana parking lot for their jobs.
Because they are a captive audience to the downtown housing market, some rent rundown trailers with naked light bulbs, creaky wood floors and mattresses covering every floor space for as much as $2,000 a month. To split the cost, a dozen farmworkers live in some trailers that should only accommodate three people.
"We have to fight," Hernandez said. "If we don't fight for ourselves, nobody else will."
